The Colorful World of Fungi

Birth, death, change. In the forest, the miraculous cycle of life is forever ongoing. Nothing is lost, overlooked, forgotten; everything is utilized not once or twice but innumerable times in a silent pageant of transformation. Control of these events, to a great extent, falls to little-known and often unseen organisms commonly called fungi. To their rapacious appetites, even the stately tree must at last succumb. The decay these scavengers create releases carbon, one of the most important elements in the world, without which there would be no forest at all. Many fungi produce a whitish mat known to scien tists as mycelium, composed of loosely arranged threads where a spore has germinated. It grows in recesses under bark, in cavities, leaf duff, debris, even other decayed material. The fruiting bodies of certain fungi-commonly called mushrooms-emerging from the mycelium are what typically catch our eye in the out-of-doors. Shaped in every conceivable design and tinted in every color of the spectrum, these sometimes deadly, sometimes delectable tidbits begin as knots on the branching mycelium. Rapidly swelling with moisture, they burst from the ground in buttonlike shapes, sometimes exerting enough pressure to break through a concrete sidewalk! When temperature, rainfall, and humidity are perfectly balanced, mushrooms can spring up overnight. The mushroom's life is short, only a day or two, but its mycelium can be dozens of years old. As a matter of fact, mushrooms forming familiar fairy rings may generate from matter hundreds of years old. Every bit as colorful as the mushrooms are the lichens. The "odd couple" of nature, a lichen is a complex "plant cooperative" functioning as a single unit. It consists of one of the sac or club fungi, some of which belong to the same families as mushrooms, and an alga similar to that found in ponds. The alga has the ability to draw gases from the air and use sunlight to make food for its fungus partner, which, in turn, gives off organic acids powerful enough to decompose and dissolve the minerals in rocks. Together, the two components carry on important ecological work by slowly disintegrating the hardest of rocks and creating new soil. In all rocky habitats, lichens are the forerunners of the plant world, preparing soil for more highly organized species. Even after the destructive violence and devastation of a volcanic eruption, lichens are often the first organisms to appear, slowly starting the miraculous cycle of birth, death, and change all over again.

Editor's note: The accurate identification of individual species of fungi and lichens requires the discerning of more detail than these photographs permit. This portfolio is presented for its esthetic and general instructional qualities, not as a scientific or interpretive guide. Because some fungi are poisonous, we strongly caution anyone searching out wild mushrooms for human consumption to be certain of the distinguishing characteristics of both edible and dangerous kinds before collecting.

Known for his creative wildlife photography, longtime contributor Willis Peterson has recently retired from 18 years as professor of photography at Glendale Community College.

"We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor... the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees... the earth herself...."