Nature Fungi Quotes

A mycelial network is a map of a fungus’s recent history and is a helpful reminder that all life-forms are in fact processes not things. The “you” of five years ago was made from different stuff than the “you” of today. Nature is an event that never stops. As William Bateson, who coined the word genetics, observed, “We commonly think of animals and plants as matter, but they are really systems through which matter is continually passing.

When we start learning from and working with fungi, there will be no such thing as trash anymore. And there are so many business opportunities in that.

If nature is left to itself, fertility increases. Organic remains of plants and animals accumulate and are decomposed on the surface by bacteria and fungi. With the movement of rainwater, the nutrients are taken deep into the soil to become food for microorganisms, earthworms, and other small animals. Plant roots reach to the lower soil strata and draw the nutrients back up to the surface.

Another thing cooking is, or can be, is a way to honor the things we're eating, the animals and plants and fungi that have been sacrificed to gratify our needs and desires, as well as the places and the people that produced them. Cooks have their ways of saying grace too... Cooking something thoughtfully is a way to celebrate both that species and our relation to it.

Not only does fruit fight cancer, it kills all types of viruses and bacteria. Certain fruits, such as bananas, wild blueberries, apples, and papayas, are the most powerful natural destroyers of viruses on earth. Fruit is also vital to gut health—which is essential to a healthy immune system. For example, the pectin in apples, and the skin, pulp, and fiber in figs and dates, are exceptionally effective at killing and/or clearing out anything that doesn’t belong in your intestinal tract, including fungi such as Candida, worms, and other parasites.

Examples of fractals are everywhere in nature. They can be found in the patterns of trees, branches, and ferns, in which each part appears to be a smaller image of the whole. They are found in the branch-like patterns of river systems, lightning, and blood vessels. They can be seen in snowflakes, seashells, crystals, and mountain ranges. We can even see the holographic and fractal-like nature of reality in the structure of the Universe itself, as the clusters of galaxies and dark matter resemble the neurons in our brain, the mycelium network of fungi, as well as the network of the man-made Internet.

One could speculate that lichens would be among the last inhabitants to succumb on a dying earth at some distant point in the future.

It was very sad under the trees. Although spring was well advanced, in the deep shade there was nothing but death-rotten leaves, gray and white fungi, and over everything a funeral hush.

In the wild a plant and its pests are continually coevolving, in a dance of resistance and conquest that can have no ultimate victor. But coevolution ceases in an orchard of grafted trees, since they are genetically identical from generation to generation. The problem very simply is that the apple trees no longer reproduce sexually, as they do when they’re grown from seed, and sex is nature’s way of creating fresh genetic combinations. At the same time the viruses, bacteria, fungi, and insects keep very much at it, reproducing sexually and continuing to evolve until eventually they hit on the precise genetic combination that allows them to overcome whatever resistance the apples may have once possessed. Suddenly total victory is in the pests’ sight—unless, that is, people come to the tree’s rescue, wielding the tools of modern chemistry.

If bacteria can be pictured as teeming black ants under the microscope, imagine fungi as gossamer spider webs. These organisms form long threads called hyphae that stretch between plant roots. Some form into even larger masses called mycelium that can span an entire backyard.

It is a natural human impulse to think of evolution as a long chain of improvements, of a never-ending advance towards largeness and complexity – in a word, towards us. We flatter ourselves. Most of the real diversity in evolution has been small-scale. We large things are just flukes – an interesting side branch. Of the twenty-three main divisions of life, only three – plants, animals and fungi – are large enough to be seen by the human eye33, and even they contain species that are microscopic. Indeed, according to Woese, if you totalled up all the biomass of the planet – every living thing, plants included – microbes would account for at least 80 per cent of all there is34, perhaps more. The world belongs to the very small – and it has done for a very long time.

For many Westerners, “it’s natural” seems to mean “it’s good.” This view is wrong and comes from shopping in supermarkets and living in landscaped environments. Plants evolved toxins to deter animals, fungi, and bacteria from eating them. The list of “natural” foods that need processing to detoxify them goes on and on. Early potatoes were toxic, and the Andean peoples ate clay to neutralize the toxin. Even beans can be toxic without processing. In California, many hunter-gatherer populations relied on acorns, which, similar to manioc, require a labor intensive, multiday leaching process. Many small-scale societies have similarly exploited hardy, tropical plants called cycads for food. But cycads contain a nerve toxin. If not properly processed, they can cause neurological symptoms, paralysis, and death. Numerous societies, including hunter-gatherers, have culturally evolved an immense range of detoxification techniques for cycads. By contrast with our species, other animals have far superior abilities to detoxify plants. Humans, however, lost these genetic adaptations and evolved a dependence on cultural know-how, just to eat.

The day I no longer walk through the forest with wonder, is the day I no longer belong to this earth.

What would it mean to build artificial intelligences and other machines that were more like octopuses, more like fungi, or more like forests?

Whatever the particularities of their history, these fallen trees have now started the next part of their journey through the ecology of this old-growth forest. Fungi, salamanders, and thousands of species of invertebrates will thrive in and under the rotting trunks. At least half a tree's contribution to the fabric of life comes after its death, so one measure of a vitality of a forest ecosystem is the density of tree carcasses. You're in a great forest if you cannot pick out a straight-line path through fallen limbs and trunks. A bare forest floor is a sign of ill health.

Re-wilding is a story of nature's amazing capacity to rebound. It tells of the resilience of birch and pine, the dogged persistence of badger and fox, of dandelion and vine, the dark and voiceless worlds of algae and fungi.

When we look at a tree, we do not see the tree for what it really is. We see how it appears to us on the surface, and we dismiss it as being just another form in the Universe. We fail to realize that the tree is connected to the Universe on every level; that all of nature is expressing itself through that single form. There can be no tree without the earth that it grows from, the sun that gives it energy, the water that nourishes its growth, and the millions of fungi and bacteria fertilizing its soil. Looking deeply into anything in nature, we realize that it is connected to the whole. We see that nature is one seamless web, and the notion that things have an existence of their own is merely an illusion.

Somewhere close I knew spear-nosed bats flew through the tree crowns in search of fruit, palm vipers coiled in ambush in the roots of orchids, jaguars walked the river's edge; around them eight hundred species of trees stood, more than are native to all of North America; and a thousand species of butterflies, 6 percent of the entire world fauna, waited for the dawn.About the orchids of that place we knew very little. About flies and beetles almost nothing, fungi nothing, most kinds of organisms nothing. Five thousand kinds of bacteria might be found in a pinch of soil, and about them we knew absolutely nothing. This was wilderness in the sixteenth-century sense, as it must have formed in the minds of the Portuguese explorers, its interior still largely unexplored and filled with strange, myth-engendering plants and animals. From such a place the pious naturalist would send long respectful letters to royal patrons about the wonders of the new world as testament to the glory of God. And I thought: there is still time to see this land in such a manner.

Difficult To Believe Impossible To Deny The world today is witnessing the emergence of an extraordinary phenomenon that offers a radical way to transform life on this planet for the benefit of all. This phenomenon brought to the world by Mahendra Trivedi is known as The Trivedi Effect®. The Trivedi Effect® is a natural phenomenon that transforms living organisms and non-living materials through the Energy Transmissions of Mahendra Trivedi and The Trivedi Masters™. This Intelligent energy has the ability to transform all living organisms such as plants, trees, seeds, bacteria, viruses, fungi, animals, cancer cells, human cells…everything. In the addition to that, this energy has the ability to transform nonliving materials, such as metals, ceramics, polymers, and chemicals by changing the structure of the atom permanently.

Numerous animals, from Douglas squirrels to an assortment of tiny insects, as well as mosses, lichens, ferns, and other plants and fungi, all make their homes in living Douglas fir trees. When one of these mighty trees dies and falls to the forest floor, it becomes a nurse log—that is, a huge decaying hunk of wood that feeds countless living beings with its fibers and the nutrients therein. A tree sucks up a lot of resources in its lifetime, and when it dies, all those resources are released back into the ecosystem at large to be used by other beings.

For not only do fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising terrible events,—as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in maritime life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors abound, wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to.

... neither the metaphor of ‘melting pot’ nor of ‘salad bowl’ can accurately explain Indian culture. My preferred metaphor is that of the Rain Forest. The ‘tropical rain forest’ characteristically has a number of layers, each with a variety of flora and fauna adapted for life in that particular layer. The layers include the uppermost ‘emergent’ layer that rises above to form the canopy of the forest, the ‘under-story’ and finally the ‘forest floor’, the foundational core. This emergent layer has its roots in the forest floor that is full of shrubs, vines and fungi... A ‘bird’s-eye view’ cannot reveal this rootedness, the underlying substratum, the under-stories and the forest floor. If the metaphor of ‘tropical rain forest’ is applied to the Indus Valley Civilization, the citadels, the rulers, and the rich merchants with their maritime wealth, the urban structure and its finesse are comparable with the ‘emergent canopy’. Yet the bulk of the demography was at the root – the substratum, from which the mature urban cities emerged... The nature of its religion, the cultural practices, cockfights and bull-vaulting visually represent the ‘under-story’ of the IVC.

Even in a forest, there are loners, would-be hermits who want little to do with others. Can such antisocial trees block alarm calls simply by not participating? Luckily, they can't. For usually there are fungi present that act as intermediaries to guarantee quick dissemination of news. These fungi operate like fiber-optic Internet cables. Their thin filaments penetrate the ground, weaving through it in almost unbelievable density. One teaspoon of forest soil contains many miles of these "hyphae." Over centuries, a single fungus can cover many square miles and network an entire forest. The fungal connections transmit signals from one tree to the next, helping the trees exchange news about insects, drought, and other dangers. Science has adopted a term first coined by the journal Nature for Dr. Simard's discovery of the "wood wide web" pervading our forests. What and how much information is exchanged are subjects we have only just begun to research. For instance, Simard discovered that different tree species are in contact with one another, even when they regard each other as competitors. And the fungi are pursuing their own agendas and appear to be very much in favor of conciliation and equitable distribution of information and resources.

As oaks age they typically lose much of their inner xylem tissue, creating large hollow spaces within their trunks that serve as home to countless creatures, from rare fungi to raccoons, opossums, squirrels, bats, bobcats, and even black bears. We have been led to think that once there are hollow spaces created by rot within a tree trunk, that tree must come down. Not so! Such “rot” is normal and does not affect the living cambium that lies just under the bark of your oak nor the functional strength of the trunk. Hollow trunks are just one feature of ancient oaks that makes them such valuable ecological additions to our landscapes. Beating

CHEESE Cheese is the result of microbes such as bacteria or fungi competing for a food source. Each microbe attempts to use chemicals to convince other forms of life not to eat that food source. Sometimes we call those chemicals antibiotics or mold toxins; other times we call them “delicious.” As your liver works to process cheese toxins, your Labrador brain demands energy, and you are likely to experience food cravings as a result. This is why so many people simply love cheese—they eat it, and then they crave more. Mold toxins in cheese and dairy come from two places. The first is indirect contamination, which happens when dairy cows eat feed containing mycotoxins that pass into the milk. The more contaminated animal feed is, the cheaper it is, so producers don’t normally strive to eliminate toxins from animal food. The second source of toxins in cheese comes from direct contamination, which occurs when we accidentally or intentionally introduce molds to cheese. The most common mycotoxins that are stable in cheese are citrinin, penitrem A, roquefortine C, sterigmatocystin, and aflatoxin. Some others, like patulin, penicillic acid, and PR toxin, are naturally eliminated from cheese. Sterigmatocystin is carcinogenic.22 I’m not trying to be alarmist. Unless you have severe allergies, cheese is not going to kill you today. But it may cause inflammation in your skin and joints and brain, and it may make you fat. You choose whether or not to eat it.

spring could not be far off, that every passing day had to bring us closer to it, and that here in the natural Eden of the Smokies it would surely, at last, burst forth. For the Smokies are a very Eden. We were entering what botanists like to call “the finest mixed mesophytic forest in the world.” The Smokies harbor an astonishing range of plant life—over 1,500 types of wildflower, a thousand varieties of shrub, 530 mosses and lichen, 2,000 types of fungi. They are home to 130 native species of tree; the whole of Europe has just 85. They owe this lavish abundance to the deep, loamy soils of their sheltered valleys, known locally as coves; to their warm, moist climate (which produces the natural bluish haze from which they get their name); and above all to the happy accident of the Appalachians’ north—south orientation.

Most of what presents itself to us in the marketplace as a product is in truth a web of relationships, between people, yes, but also between ourselves and all the other species on which we still depend. Eating and drinking especially implicate us in the natural world in ways that the industrial economy, with its long and illegible supply chains, would have us forget. The beer in that bottle, I'm reminded as soon as I brew it myself, ultimately comes not from a factory but from nature - from a field of barley snapping in the wind, from a hops vine clambering over a trellis, from a host of invisible microbes feasting on sugars. It took the carefully orchestrated collaboration of three far-flung taxonomic kingdoms - plants, animals, and fungi - to produce that ale. To make it yourself once in a while, to handle the barley and inhale the aroma of hops and yeast, becomes, among other things, a form of observance, a weekend ritual of remembrance.

People used to say Evie was weird, but she didn't care. She said she liked weird things." This professed love of the weird might go some way to explaining Evie's particular interests in the world of fauna and flora. Not for her the "obvious" choices like koalas and kangaroos; her favorite animals were monotremes. And while she loved the smells and sights of gums and banksias and wattles, it was the primeval expanse of the forest floor that excited her. Evie was mystified when her classmates spoke of magic and make-believe, and by the stories Reverend Lawson told in church on Sundays of water turning to wine and angels appearing to men. Why, she puzzled, did people seek refuge in such fantasies, when the natural world offered endless wonder? She delighted in entering the cool, dark realm of the bush after rain, searching through sopping leaf muck to discover that a whole new variety of fungi had sprouted overnight, an array of unimaginable shapes and sizes and colors waiting to be explored and catalogued.

When I’m old and dying, wheezing my guts out, my organs failing, I want to walk out the front door of some old farmhouse on my own land, maybe forty, fifty hectares of it. I want to find a cool place in the woods under some old oak tree and settle down there and die as the sun comes up. I want a death rattle, a final breath, a body intact that can then be torn apart by scavengers, riddled with worms, my limbs dragged off to feed some family of little foxes, my guts teeming with maggots, until I am nothing but a gooey collection of juices that feeds the fungi and the oak seedlings and the wild grasses. I want my bleached bones scatted across my own land, broken and sucked clean of marrow, half buried in snow and finally, finally, covered over in loam and ground to dust by the passage of time, until I am broken into fragments, the pieces of my body returned to where they came. I could give back something to this world instead of taking, taking, taking. That’s the death I want. The death that means the most to me. That is the good death, the best death, and that is the death I wish not only for myself, but for you, too. Our lives are finite. Our bodies imperfect. We shouldn’t spend it feeding somebody else’s cause.

These truffles were a different thing altogether from the summer truffle he and Benedetta had found earlier in the year. Pale in color and as large as potatoes, they were both awesomely pungent and deeply intoxicating. Gusta and Benedetta threw them into every dish as casually as if they were throwing in parsley, and after a while Bruno did the same. He would never forget the first time they cooked a wild boar with celery and truffles: the dark, almost rank meat and the sulfuric reek of the tuber combined to form a taste that made him shiver. He was aware that Benedetta was deliberately cooking dishes designed to bind him to her. As well as the truffles, there was robiola del bec, a cheese made from the milk of a pregnant ewe, rich in pheromones. There were fiery little diavolilli, strong chile peppers that had been left to dry in the sun. Plates of fried funghi included morsels of Amanita, the ambrosia of the gods, said to be a natural narcotic. He didn't mind. He was doing the same to her: offering her unusual gelati flavored with saffron, the delicate pollen of the crocus flower; elaborate tarts of myrtle and chocolate; salads made with lichens and even acorns from her beloved woods. It was a game they played, based on their intimate appreciation of the taste of each other's bodies, so that the food and the sex became one harmonious whole, and it became impossible to say where eating ended and lovemaking began.

All the substances that are the main drugs of abuse today originate in natural plant products and have been known to human beings for thousands of years. Opium, the basis of heroin, is an extract of the Asian poppy Papaver somniferum. Four thousand years ago, the Sumerians and Egyptians were already familiar with its usefulness in treating pain and diarrhea and also with its powers to affect a person’s psychological state. Cocaine is an extract of the leaves of Erythroxyolon coca, a small tree that thrives on the eastern slopes of the Andes in western South America. Amazon Indians chewed coca long before the Conquest, as an antidote to fatigue and to reduce the need to eat on long, arduous mountain journeys. Coca was also venerated in spiritual practices: Native people called it the Divine Plant of the Incas. In what was probably the first ideological “War on Drugs” in the New World, the Spanish invaders denounced coca’s effects as a “delusion from the devil.” The hemp plant, from which marijuana is derived, first grew on the Indian subcontinent and was christened Cannabis sativa by the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus in 1753. It was also known to ancient Persians, Arabs and Chinese, and its earliest recorded pharmaceutical use appears in a Chinese compendium of medicine written nearly three thousand years ago. Stimulants derived from plants were also used by the ancient Chinese, for example in the treatment of nasal and bronchial congestion. Alcohol, produced by fermentation that depends on microscopic fungi, is such an indelible part of human history and joy making that in many traditions it is honoured as a gift from the gods. Contrary to its present reputation, it has also been viewed as a giver of wisdom. The Greek historian Herodotus tells of a tribe in the Near East whose council of elders would never sustain a decision they made when sober unless they also confirmed it under the influence of strong wine. Or, if they came up with something while intoxicated, they would also have to agree with themselves after sobering up. None of these substances could affect us unless they worked on natural processes in the human brain and made use of the brain’s innate chemical apparatus. Drugs influence and alter how we act and feel because they resemble the brain’s own natural chemicals. This likeness allows them to occupy receptor sites on our cells and interact with the brain’s intrinsic messenger systems. But why is the human brain so receptive to drugs of abuse? Nature couldn’t have taken millions of years to develop the incredibly intricate system of brain circuits, neurotransmitters and receptors that become involved in addiction just so people could get “high” to escape their troubles or have a wild time on a Saturday night. These circuits and systems, writes a leading neuroscientist and addiction researcher, Professor Jaak Panksepp, must “serve some critical purpose other than promoting the vigorous intake of highly purified chemical compounds recently developed by humans.” Addiction may not be a natural state, but the brain regions it subverts are part of our central machinery of survival.

Oil pulling is believed to help remove bacteria, fungi, and even viruses from the gum line.

1. Insects and fungi are not the real cause of plant diseases but only attack unsuitable varieties or crops imperfectly grown. Their true role is that of censors for pointing out the crops that are improperly nourished and so keeping our agriculture up to the mark. In other words, the pests must be looked upon as Nature's professors of agriculture: as an integral portion of any rational system of farming. 2. The policy of protecting crops from pests by means of sprays, powders, and so forth is unscientific and unsound as, even when successful, such procedure merely preserves the unfit and obscures the real problem -- how to grow healthy crops." (An Agricultural Testament)

Few realize that a great deal of the energy that results from photosyntheisis in the leaves is actually used by plants to produce chemicals they secrete through their roots. These secretions are known as exudates. [...] Root exudates are in the form of carbohydrates (including sugars) and proteins. Amazingly, their presence wakes up, attracts and grows specific beneficial bacteria and fungi living in the soil that subsist on these exudates and the cellular material sloughed off as the plant's root tips grow. [...] During different times of the growing season, populations of rhizosphere bacteria and fungi wax and wane, depending on the nutrient needs of the plant and the exudates it produces. [...] Plants produce exudates that attract fungi and bacteria (and, ultimately, nematodes and protozoa); their survival depends on the interplay between these microbes. It is a completely natural system, the very same one that has fueled plants since they evolved. Soil life produces the nutrients needed for plant life, and plants initiate and fuel the cycle by producing exudates.

If we needed more energy, we didn’t worry about perfect efficiency, which is fundamental to how nature works—it always uses the least to get the most done—we simply added more fuel. That worked really well for quite a long time until that energy inefficiency, along with a growing scarcity of materials, started creating some very negative consequences, multiplied today by billions of people.

I also love mushrooms! I think they are truly magical, and I have had some delightful weird experiences of perceiving the world’s aliveness while tripping on mushrooms on multiple continents.6 In general, the role that fungi play in nature is wonderful—they are communicators, they process toxins, they break down dead material and make it serve life.

Most of the fungi we eat obtain their energy by one of two means: saprophytically, by decomposing dead vegetable matter, and mycorrhizally, by associating with the roots of living plants.

Smuts are parasitic fungi that are often spread by pollinators and so, in the case of campions, pollinators pose the double threat of both laying eggs that will hatch into voracious larvae and giving the flower a nasty dose of the clap.

Even in purely economic terms, the opportunity costs of extinction are going to prove enormous. Research on jus small numbers of wild species has yielded major advances in the quality of human life -- an abundance of pharmaceuticals, new biotechnology, and advances in agriculture. If there were no fungi of the right kind, there would be no antibiotics. Without wild plants with edible stems, frukit and seeds available for selective breeding, there would be no cities, and no civilization. No wolves, no dogs. No wild fowl, no chickens. No horses and camelids, no overland journeys except by hand-pulled vehicles and backpacks. No forests to purify water and pay it out gradually, no agriculture except with less productive dryland crops. No wild vegetation and phytoplankton, not enough air to breathe. Without nature, finally, no people.

What we call the xenosphere, the psychic link that you are all able to exploit, is made up of strands of alien fungi-like filaments and neurotransmitters. We call the xenoform ascomycetes xenosphericus. It is everywhere, in every environment on Earth. These delicate filaments are too small for the naked eye to see, and they are fragile, but they form multiple links with the natural fungi on human skin. They have an affinity for nerve endings and quickly access the central nervous system. Everybody linked to this network of xenoforms, this xenosphere is uploading information constantly, passively, without knowing. There is a global store of information in the very atmosphere, a worldmind, which only people like you can access.

Woodpeckers are natural engineers whose abandoned nest and roost cavities facilitate a great diversity of life, including birds, mammals, invertebrates, and many fungi,moss, and lichens. Without woodpeckers, birds such as chickadees and tits, swallows ans martins, bluebirds, some flycatchers, nuthatches, wood ducks, hooded mergansers, and small owls (screech, saw-whet, and pygmy) would be homeless.

With this increased diversity at the base of the food chain, there are increased opportunities for insects and fungi and bacteria that did not initially accompany the plants to spread around the world.

Like oak tissues above the ground, oak root systems are massive and built from carbon. But what makes oaks a particularly valuable tool in our fight against climate change is their relationship with mycorrhizal fungi: mycorrhizae make copious amounts of carbon-rich glomalin, a highly stable glycoprotein that gives soil much of its structure and dark color. Oak mycorrhizae deposit glomalin into the soil surrounding oak roots throughout the life of the tree. Every pound of glomalin produced by oak mycorrhizae is a pound of carbon no longer warming the atmosphere, and glomalin remains in soil for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

For centuries, naturalists and philosophers have struggled to make sense of the range of life on Earth. One of the earliest and most pervasive ideas was that of a ‘Scale of Nature’ in which living, and sometimes non-living, things were arranged into a linear hierarchy. Each ascending rung on a ladder represented increasing ‘advancement’, based on a blend of anatomical complexity, religious significance, and practical usefulness. The idea had its origins in the thinking of Plato and Aristotle, but was crystallized by the work of the 18th-century Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet. In Bonnet’s scheme, the Scale of Nature rose from earth and metals, to stones and salts, and stepwise through fungi, plants, sea anemones, worms, insects, snails, reptiles, water serpents, fish, birds, and finally mammals, with man sitting comfortably on top. Or almost on top, being marginally trumped by angels and archangels. It is easy to ridicule such ideas today, but Bonnet had a good knowledge of the natural world. For example, it was Bonnet who discovered asexual reproduction in aphids and the way that butterflies and their caterpillars breathe. Furthermore, the idea of a Scale of Nature still pervades much modern writing, with many scientists talking of ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ animals: language that bears an uncanny resemblance to this old and discredited idea.

Fungi create mycelium, which is the neural network of nature; it does the same in our system. We need vitamin B12; which is found in fungi.

What a natural history of religion would show is that the human experience of the divine has deep roots in psychoactive plants and fungi. Karl Marx may have gotten in backward when he called religion the opiate of the people.

The following are all foods you should feel welcome to eat freely (unless, of course, you know they bother your stomach): Alliums (Onions, Leeks, Garlic, Scallions): This category of foods, in particular, is an excellent source of prebiotics and can be extremely nourishing to our bugs. If you thought certain foods were lacking in flavor, try sautéing what you think of as that “boring” vegetable or tofu with any member of this family and witness the makeover. Good-quality olive oil, sesame oil, or coconut oil can all help with the transformation of taste. *Beans, Legumes, and Pulses: This family of foods is one of the easiest ways to get a high amount of fiber in a small amount of food. You know how beans make some folks a little gassy? That’s a by-product of our bacterial buddies chowing down on that chili you just consumed for dinner. Don’t get stuck in a bean rut. Seek out your bean aisle or peruse the bulk bin at your local grocery store and see if you can try for three different types of beans each week. Great northern, anyone? Brightly Colored Fruits and Vegetables: Not only do these gems provide fiber, but they are also filled with polyphenols that increase diversity in the gut and offer anti-inflammatory compounds that are essential for disease prevention and healing. Please note that white and brown are colors in this category—hello, cauliflower, daikon radish, and mushrooms! Good fungi are particularly anti-inflammatory, rich in beta-glucans, and a good source of the immune-supportive vitamin D. Remember that variety is key here. Just because broccoli gets a special place in the world of superfoods doesn’t mean that you should eat only broccoli. Branch out: How about trying bok choy, napa cabbage, or an orange pepper? Include a spectrum of color on your plate and make sure that some of these vegetables are periodically eaten raw or lightly steamed, which may have greater benefits to your microbiome. Herbs and Spices: Not only incredibly rich in those anti-inflammatory polyphenols, this category of foods also has natural digestive-aid properties that can help improve the digestibility of certain foods like beans. They can also stimulate the production of bile, an essential part of our body’s mode of breaking down fat. Plus, they add pizzazz to any meal. Nuts, Seeds, and Their Respective Butters: This family of foods provides fiber, and it is also a good source of healthy and anti-inflammatory fats that help keep the digestive tract balanced and nourished. It’s time to step out of that almond rut and seek out new nutty experiences. Walnuts have been shown to confer excellent benefits on the microbiome because of their high omega-3 and polyphenol content. And if you haven’t tasted a buttery hemp seed, also rich in omega-3s and fantastic atop oatmeal, here’s your opportunity. Starchy Vegetables: These hearty vegetables are a great source of fiber and beneficial plant chemicals. When slightly cooled, they are also a source of something called resistant starch, which feeds the bacteria and enables them to create those fantabulous short-chain fatty acids. These include foods like potatoes, winter squash, and root vegetables like parsnips, beets, and rutabaga. When was the last time you munched on rutabaga? This might be your chance! Teas: This can be green, white, or black tea, all of which contain healthy anti-inflammatory compounds that are beneficial for our microbes and overall gut health. It can also be herbal tea, which is an easy way to add overall health-supportive nutrients to our diet without a lot of additional burden on our digestive system. Unprocessed Whole Grains: These are wonderful complex carbohydrates (meaning fiber-filled), which both nourish those gut bugs and have numerous vitamins and minerals that support our health. Branch out and try some new ones like millet, buckwheat, and amaranth. FOODS TO EAT IN MODERATION

What is Qasil Powder? Qasil powder is a well-kept secret among Somali and East African nomadic communities. It's a potent green cleansing powder that's widely used as a face mask to boost the skin's natural beauty for Organic Qasil powder.. The leaves of the gob tree, which is endemic to Somalia, are used to make qasil powder. The leaves are collected, dried, thoroughly ground into the fine powder, which is then prepared and ready to use without any chemical additives. Properties of Qasil powder The capacity to wash and clean the skin is known as cleansing. Antibacterial properties have included the capacity to combat bacteria and prevent infections on the skin, such as acne. It used as amla powder. Vitamins have the capacity to protect the skin from UV damage. Anti-aging seems to have the ability to slow down the progression by preventing fine lines and wrinkles from appearing. Anti-inflammatory properties Neem Hair Powder help to reduce skin inflammation. Antifungals inhibit the growth of fungi and the spread of fungal infections. It has a brightening effect due to its high vitamin C content. The advantages of qasil powder. Qasil Powder Skin benefits. removes pollutants from the skin, giving it a deep cleanse. Purifies and regulates the skin's pH. Exfoliate the skin gently, leaving it soft and supple. Skin tone is evened out. It moisturises the skin reduces acne and pimples on the skin. It promotes radiant skin by giving the skin a healthy glow. It removes dark spots and hyperpigmentation. Sunburns are soothed. reduces wrinkles and fine lines. Qasil is a hair conditioner. How to use qasil powder on hair Some people in some parts of the world use qasil powder for both their skin and their hair. It has been used as a natural Qasil powder shampoo and conditioner for the hair since it takes down particulates and surplus fats from the skin and scalp even though it is termed a natural soap with excellent cleansing characteristics. It also hydrates the hair, making it look thicker and shinier. Qasil powders also help to get rid of dandruff. It's important to recognise that once qasil powder has been formed into a paste or moistened, this must be integrated momentarily rather than saved for another day. This is due to the fact that qasil powder is sold in its natural state, with no added preservatives. As a necessary consequence, only combine far more than is required at a time. And it comes to your mind. One question: where can I get Qasil powder? So you should buy original powder from Huda Organics, which is located in the United Kingdom, ST Westend, London, WC2H 9JQ. You can reach us at 7566209608 or via email at info@hudaorganics.com.

grass from salty coastal soils, grow it without its fungal endophytes, and it won’t be able to survive in its natural salty habitat.

Plants and fungi have been cavorting in this way for more than four hundred and fifty million years, forming an ancient mutualism. Mycelia invigorate roots with nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, which they extract from the soil but which trees cannot obtain by themselves. The fungi, in turn, wrest the carbon-rich sugars that trees manufacture during photosynthesis and use it for their own growth. The circle turns once more as the mycelia assist root structures in extending throughout the undersoil, connecting trees to one another, allowing them to share a host of nutrients. And to top it off? The mycelia expand the reach of the electromagnetic pulses that are formed and transferred through the tips of trees’ roots, forming forests of social connection, intercommunication, and the kithship of community.

With the web uncovered, the intricacies of the belowground alliance still remained a mystery to me, until I started my doctoral research in 1992. Paper birches, with their lush leaves and gossamer bark, seemed to be feeding the soil and helping their coniferous neighbors. But how? In pulling back the forest floor using microscopic and genetic tools, I discovered that the vast belowground mycelial network was a bustling community of mycorrhizal fungal species. These fungi are mutualistic. They connect the trees with the soil in a market exchange of carbon and nutrients and link the roots of paper birches and Douglas firs in a busy, cooperative Internet. When the interwoven birches and firs were spiked with stable and radioactive isotopes, I could see, using mass spectrometers and scintillation counters, carbon being transmitted back and forth between the trees, like neurotransmitters firing in our own neural networks. The trees were communicating through the web! I was staggered to discover that Douglas firs were receiving more photosynthetic carbon from paper birches than they were transmitting, especially when the firs were in the shade of their leafy neighbors. This helped explain the synergy of the pair’s relationship. The birches, it turns out, were spurring the growth of the firs, like carers in human social networks. Looking further, we discovered that the exchange between the two tree species was dynamic: each took different turns as “mother,” depending on the season. And so, they forged their duality into a oneness, making a forest. This discovery was published by Nature in 1997 and called the “wood wide web.” The research has continued unabated ever since, undertaken by students, postdoctoral researchers, and other scientists, with a myriad of discoveries about belowground communication among trees. We have used new scientific tools, as they are invented, along with our curiosity and dreams, to peer into the dark world of the soil and illuminate the social network of trees. The wood wide web has been mapped, traced, monitored, and coaxed to reveal the beautiful structures and finely adapted languages of the forest network. We have learned that mother trees recognize and talk with their kin, shaping future generations. In addition, injured trees pass their legacies on to their neighbors, affecting gene regulation, defense chemistry, and resilience in the forest community. These discoveries have transformed our understanding of trees from competitive crusaders of the self to members of a connected, relating, communicating system. Ours is not the only lab making these discoveries—there is a burst of careful scientific research occurring worldwide that is uncovering all manner of ways that trees communicate with each other above and below ground.

Tens to hundreds of species can exist in the leaves and stems of a single plant. These fungi weave themselves through the gaps between plant cells in an intimate brocade and help to defend plants against disease. No plant grown under natural conditions has been found without these fungi; they are as much a part of planthood as leaves or roots.

Biodegradable products or materials are naturally broken down by biological agents, such as bacteria and fungi, into raw materials. The goal of supplementing biodegradable products in your everyday life is to recycle our natural resources and keep the Earth clean and free of growing landfills.

published by Márquez et al. (2007) in Science in 2007 described “a virus in a fungus in a plant.” The plant—a tropical grass—grows naturally in high soil temperatures. But without a fungal associate that grows in its leaves, the grass can’t survive at high temperatures. When grown alone, without the plant, the fungus fares little better and is unable to survive. However, it turns out not to be the fungus that confers the ability to survive high temperatures after all. Rather, it is a virus that lives within the fungus that confers heat tolerance. When grown without the virus, neither fungus nor plant can survive high temperatures. The microbiome of the fungus, in other words, determines the role that the fungus plays in the microbiome of the plant. The outcome is clear: life or death. One of the most dramatic examples of microbes that live within microbes comes from the notorious rice blast fungus: Rhizopus microsporus. The key toxins used by Rhizopus are actually produced by a bacterium living within its hyphae. In a dramatic indication of how entwined the fates of fungi and their bacterial associates can be, Rhizopus requires the bacteria not only to cause the disease but also to reproduce. Experimentally “curing” Rhizopus of its bacterial residents impedes the fungus’s ability to produce spores. The bacterium is responsible for the most important features of Rhizopus’s lifestyle, from its diet to its sexual habits. See Araldi-Brondolo et al. (2017), Mondo et al. (2017), and Deveau

A leaf is not just composed of plant cells, though. The waxy surface of leaves are peppered with fungal cells and leaf interiors are host to dozens of fungal cells. Fungi are closer kin to animals than they are to planet, gaining their food not from sunlight but by absorbing food into their bodies. The union melds two different parts of life’s family tree, yielding creatures whose physiology is nimble and many-skilled, both in leaves and the soil. A leaf populated with fungi is able to deter herbivores, kill pathogenic fungi, and withstand temperature extremes better than one composed only of plant cells. There may be one million species of leaf-dwelling (endophytic) fungi on the planet, making them one of the world’s most diverse groups of living creatures. Virginia Woolf wrote that the “real life” was the common life, not the “little separate lives which we live as individuals.” Her sketch of reality included trees and the sky alongside human sisters and brothers. What we now know of the nature of trees affirms her idea, not as metaphor but as incarnate reality.

I’m in a copse of ponderosa pine on the edge of an alpine meadow in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. A story emerges from the scrolling graph of the electronic sound probe. The tree is quiet through the morning, signaling an orderly and abundant flow of water from root to needle. If the previous afternoon brought rain, the quiet is prolonged. The tree itself makes this rainfall more likely. Resinous tree aromas drift to the sky, where each molecule of aroma serves as a focal point for the aggregation of water. Ponderosa, like balsam fir and ceibo, seeds clouds with its perfumes, making rain a little more likely. After a rainless day, the root’s morning beverage is brought by the soil community, a moistening without the help of rain. At night tree roots and soil fungi conspire to defy gravity and draw up water from the deeper layers of soil. By noon, the graph tracking ultrasound inflects upward. The soil has dried with the long day’s exposure to dry air and high-altitude sunshine. The species that survive, the gold resting in this alpine crucible, are those who can be miserly with water (with multiple adaptations like the ponderosa.

We had had a few beers, and while we hadn’t touched our tiny stash of azzies, we had smoked a little pot. Stamets dilated on the idea of psilocybin as a chemical messenger sent from Earth, and how we had been elected, by virtue of the gift of consciousness and language, to hear its call and act before it’s too late. “Plants and mushrooms have intelligence, and they want us to take care of the environment, and so they communicate that to us in a way we can understand.” Why us? “We humans are the most populous bipedal organisms walking around, so some plants and fungi are especially interested in enlisting our support. I think they have a consciousness and are constantly trying to direct our evolution by speaking out to us biochemically. We just need to be better listeners.” These were riffs I’d heard Stamets deliver in countless talks and interviews. “Mushrooms have taught me the interconnectedness of all life-forms and the molecular matrix that we share,” he explains in another one. “I no longer feel that I am in this envelope of a human life called Paul Stamets. I am part of the stream of molecules that are flowing through nature. I am given a voice, given consciousness for a time, but I feel that I am part of this continuum of stardust into which I am born and to which I will return at the end of this life.” Stamets sounded very much like the volunteers I met at Hopkins who had had full-blown mystical experiences, people whose sense of themselves as individuals had been subsumed into a larger whole—a form of “unitive consciousness,” which, in Stamets’s case, had folded him into the web of nature, as its not so humble servant. “I think Psilocybes have given me new insights that may allow me to help steer and speed fungal evolution so that we can find solutions to our problems.” Especially in a time of ecological crisis, he suggests, we can’t afford to wait for evolution, unfolding at its normal pace, to put forth these solutions in time. Let the depatterning begin. As

He writes in his book that mycelia—the vast, cobwebby whitish net of single-celled filaments, called hyphae, with which fungi weave their way through the soil—are intelligent, forming “a sentient membrane” and “the neurological network of nature.

there are fungi present that act as intermediaries to guarantee quick dissemination of news. These fungi operate like fiber-optic Internet cables. Their thin filaments penetrate the ground, weaving through it in almost unbelievable density. One teaspoon of forest soil contains many miles of these “hyphae.”8 Over centuries, a single fungus can cover many square miles and network an entire forest. The fungal connections transmit signals from one tree to the next, helping the trees exchange news about insects, drought, and other dangers. Science has adopted a term first coined by the journal Nature for Dr. Simard’s discovery of the “wood wide web” pervading our forests.