Funga Obscura:
Photo journeys among fungi
by Alison Pouliot

Reviewed by Annette Kennewell

Alison Pouliot, a world-famous expert on fungi, is coming back to the Triangle area to launch her new book during the Fungi Feastival on 20 June at the Bermagui Community Hall at 6.00 pm.

Alison spends a lot of time on forest floors to capture breathtaking photos of fungi in all their flamboyant, discreet, drab, disfigured or grotesque glory. She must get pretty wet and muddy to photograph underneath the umbrella-shaped fungi to show us the spores and feathery gills.

‘Every time I enter the forest,’ Alison explains, ‘I discover something new … if we look and listen, smell and feel beyond the familiar, the extraordinary forms and hues of another forest come into focus – the fungi.’

The essays that intersperse the gorgeous photos provide information about the diversity of fungi that grow everywhere – on lawns and in forests, oceans, deserts and on mountain peaks. Lichens cover seven percent of the earth – who knew? Alison! She describes how one individual leaf can harbour myriad organisms, including spore-spreading bugs and snails. While they inform, the essays also provoke questions about why fungi are the focus of renewed attention.

The answer is that fungi don’t just grow – they help create the soil, they team up with plants like orchids to ensure their survival, they help to recycle forest nutrients and are essential to the ecosystems that sustain the planet. The shift from thinking of fungus as a disease or destroyer to fungus as vital to our ecosystems is a positive development that Alison’s work has helped to encourage. While fungi are able ‘to heave their way through the earth’, we are ensured food, medicine and a healthy environment.

See you at the book launch on 20 June or at the workshop and foray with Alison on 21 June in Dalmeny!