The Medicinal Mushroom Forest

The Medicinal Mushroom Forest




 Forest dwellers long ago discovered the value of medicinal mushrooms for the healing of both the body and the forest. Sadly, most of our ancestors’ empirical knowledge is lost, but what little survives hints at a rich, albeit vulnerable, resource. 
The science of soils—mapping the matrix of plant, animal, and microbial communities in a habitat remains in its infancy. Researchers have shown, however, that the forest is thoroughly interlaced with fungal nets of mycorrhizal, saprophytic, parasitic, and endophytic species. Mushrooms are forest guardians. A forest ecosystem cannot be defined without its fungi because they govern the transition between life and death and the building of soils, all the while fueling numerous life cycles. Primary saprophytes initiate the decomposition process, and what the saprophytes don’t break down, the mycorrhizal fungi do. I suspect that the overlying saprophytic fungi on the forest floor also influence the diversity of mycorrhizal fungi through their selection of trees to associate with, and that they stream nutrients to the root zones. Other groups of fungi (including endophytes and parasites) also work in concert. With a complex interplay of
partnerships, mutualism, and parasitism, fungi build the soils beneath our feet. 
The health of a forest eco-system’s foundation is an interplay of mycelial
networks from saprophytic, mycorrhizal, endophytic, and parasitic fungi. 
As loggers cut down the old-growth forests, many fungi lose their foothold in the
ecosystem. Whether these fungi remain as mycelia, not re-surfacing in fruiting for decades or centuries, is a matter of debate. When the forest returns to its previous majestic state, do the same mushroom strains also return, having lain latent in the landscape? 

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