Fungi

In an acre of meadow it’s estimated that you can find about 2,500 pounds of fungi. Among the wealth of life on Earth there are somewhere between 70 to 100 thousand types of fungi. That number includes mushrooms, molds, mildews, yeast, and puffballs, which we class as botanical. But fungi don’t really don’t fit. Fungi don’t photosynthesize (no chlorophyll so they aren’t green) but take their energy directly from a food source.

One of my biology teaches once explained why it’s a good idea to keep a Petri dishes covered – the fungi we culture in them are sometimes dangerous. For example, black mold can be deadly. But fungi can be helpful too. Penicillin and its derivatives are useful in the treatment of bacterial infections, yeast helps bread rise, and fungi also help us make cultured food such as yogurt, cheese, and beer.

Biologists estimate that there are from 3 to 200 million species living on Earth, ninety-seven percent of which have yet to be discovered. So every time you run across a mushroom, mold, or other fungi stop and think - you may be the first person ever to have clapped eyes on its like.