Overview

A whirlwind journey through fungus frontiers that underscores how appreciating fungi is key to understanding our planet’s power and fragility. What can we learn from the lives of fungi? Splitting time between the northern and southern hemispheres, ecologist Alison Pouliot ensures that she experiences two autumns per year in the pursuit of fungi—from Australia’s deserts to Iceland’s glaciers to America’s Cascade Mountains. In Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms, we journey alongside Pouliot, magnifiers in hand, as she travels the world. With Pouliot as our guide, we smell fire-loving truffles that transform their scent after burning to lure mammals who eat them and, ultimately, spread their spores. We spot the eerie glow of the ghost fungus, a deceptive entity that looks like an edible oyster mushroom but will soon heave back out—along with everything else in your stomach—if you take a bite. And we crawl alongside vegetable caterpillars, which are neither vegetable nor caterpillar but a fungus that devours insects from the inside out. Featuring stunning color photographs of these mycological miracles, Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms shows that understanding fungi is fundamental for harmonizing with the natural world.

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9780226829630

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Reviews

This subterranean journey introduces the quirks of behavior that allow fungi to spread through soils, support living plants, and recycle the debris of nature. Alison is an accomplished storyteller. -- Nicholas P. Money | Miami University [Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] is a joy to read. -- Sophie Cunningham | author of City of Trees Sensual and scientific. Dazzling and boundary breaking. [Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] will make you see the world anew. -- Long Litt Woon | author of The Way Through the Woods The world of fungi is our world even if we don't know it and can't see most of it-strange, dazzling, spooky, unpredictable, friendly, deadly, sly. And Alison is the perfect guide. She surprises and informs, delights and warns; makes you wish you could walk with her and her passionate companions. That's OK. In this book you do. -- Paul Kelly | songwriter An evocative, accessible and important book about one of the most vital, yet hugely ignored, kingdoms on our planet-fungi. After reading this you cannot help but see the world in a different light-and should approach mushrooms and truffles with new relish. -- Charles Massy | author of Call of the Reed Warbler Anyone who has joined Alison in a forest, anywhere in the world, will know her incredible ability to magnify those microscopic organisms that hold our natural world together, to connect every element of human life-physical, emotional or social-to the function of our natural landscapes. [Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] is like a walk in the forest, pungent and complex, filled with curiosity and wonder, and leaving you with a sense that there is so much more to uncover. -- Millie Ross | ABCTV Gardening Australia The underground teaches us a different language-and Alison Pouliot is the perfect translator. -- Toby Kiers | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam [Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] takes storytelling about fungi to a captivating new level. A well-researched page turner. -- Anders Dahlberg | Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

"""This subterranean journey introduces the quirks of behavior that allow fungi to spread through soils, support living plants, and recycle the debris of nature. Alison is an accomplished storyteller."" -- Nicholas P. Money | Miami University ""[Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] is a joy to read.""  -- Sophie Cunningham | author of ""City of Trees"" ""Sensual and scientific. Dazzling and boundary breaking. [Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] will make you see the world anew."" -- Long Litt Woon | author of ""The Way Through the Woods"" ""The world of fungi is our world even if we don’t know it and can’t see most of it—strange, dazzling, spooky, unpredictable, friendly, deadly, sly. And Alison is the perfect guide. She surprises and informs, delights and warns; makes you wish you could walk with her and her passionate companions. That’s OK. In this book you do."" -- Paul Kelly | songwriter ""An evocative, accessible and important book about one of the most vital, yet hugely ignored, kingdoms on our planet—fungi. After reading this you cannot help but see the world in a different light—and should approach mushrooms and truffles with new relish."" -- Charles Massy | author of ""Call of the Reed Warbler"" ""Anyone who has joined Alison in a forest, anywhere in the world, will know her incredible ability to magnify those microscopic organisms that hold our natural world together, to connect every element of human life—physical, emotional or social—to the function of our natural landscapes. [Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] is like a walk in the forest, pungent and complex, filled with curiosity and wonder, and leaving you with a sense that there is so much more to uncover."" -- Millie Ross | ABCTV ""Gardening Australia"" ""The underground teaches us a different language—and Alison Pouliot is the perfect translator."" -- Toby Kiers | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ""[Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] takes storytelling about fungi to a captivating new level. A well-researched page turner."" -- Anders Dahlberg | Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences"

Author Information

Alison Pouliot is an ecologist and photographer with a passion for fungi.

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