Puffballs and Picture Books

She was sitting down in a chair much too small for her, and had the picture book supported by her left thigh wearing checkered black and white pants. The glossy pages sparkled under the lights in the classroom, and the occasional sniffle could be heard from the sleeping mats. I do not remember the plot, nor the characters in this story, but the image of big, red mushrooms with brilliant white polka dots stayed with me since the day my first grade teacher read me that story. Despite the hours I spent digging through dirt and worms on the playground or scaling mossy rocks after school, I could never find anything even remotely similar to the giant beanstalks and purple roses I grew up reading about. As I have grown older, I have discovered that the magic nature possesses is not what you see in picture books, nor is it the most brightly colored, vivid works of art. The most beautiful and intricate things are often camouflaged into the earth, growing from the crevices of fallen logs, or sprouting from among the pebbles underneath our feet. Over the course of this semester, I have conducted field studies of mushrooms, fungi, and moss, and investigated their structure, function, and ecosystem, learning to appreciate what was in front of me this whole time.

My field observations focused on mushrooms because I have encountered them both in Ohio and in Alabama, my home state. It does not take a scientist to understand that these two places have very different climates and thus, there are many plants and trees I grew up picking and climbing in Alabama that could not exist in the harsh winter months of Ohio, and vice versa. Mushrooms, however, are universal. They have been found on every continent on Earth (Schwan, 2011). Surprisingly, I found more similarities than differences between the mushrooms seen down south compared to up north, but I could only be certain by probing these fungi in-depth.

My first encounter with mushrooms while field journaling began as I slid down the side of a ravine, looking for something interesting to observe. There were fallen trees across the ravine, which at some points is nearly six feet deep. A mossy, decaying tree was nearly at eye-level with me, and I could see three groups of mushrooms growing from the crevices of the trunk. The first group contained five mushrooms, the tallest being just under two and a half inches. The second group also contained five mushrooms, with the smaller ones being sheltered by the taller ones, not exceeding an inch and a half. As the small mushrooms grew upwards and around the caps of the others, their stems curved into S-shapes, which is a pattern I continued to see as I made my observations. Lastly, a single mushroom with a wide cap and short stem sprouted next to a patch of moss that covered the entire log. This made me wonder about the intersystem relationships of this ecosystem, such as that between moss and mushrooms- do they live in symbiosis or independently? Are they in similar positions in the food chain?

Additionally, all of the mushrooms I noted here grew from the surface of the log. This surprised me as I had never consciously noticed that mushrooms do not only grow from soil. A few months later, our class visited the pine grove at the BFEC to study soil composition. I noticed an abundance of mushrooms growing on the forest floor, and after our lecture on the microbes and minerals that make up soil, it made me wonder about the conditions needed for mushroom growth. How do the minerals and composition of organic matter affect growth, and how does growth even begin? This led me to research optimal conditions for mushroom growth, and I found that mushrooms need to grow in 95-100% relative humidity levels and substrate moisture levels of 55-70% (Cerrato, 2019) (Adhitya et al., 2016). This would explain the similarities I see between Alabama and Ohio mushrooms, and also why they would prefer to sprout in dark crevices in a damp, decaying tree trunk. Upon researching answers to my questions, I found a study comparing mycelial growth of seven different strains of mushrooms in varying conditions of light, pH, growth medium, and temperature (Furlan et al., 1997). Their results suggest:

• Most strains grow best between 25-30 degrees Celcius

• pH 5.0-6.4 is ideal for growth, and growth rate decreased below pH 4.0

• Most cultivated mushrooms require light, which increased growth rates of all strains tested

This study made me realize mushrooms aren't as versatile as I had previously thought, and are actually very sensitive to their environment. This reflection made me consider- if mushrooms are so touchy, then why do they seem to grow everywhere? I began to explore the mechanism of spores and how they spread. Upon learning spores are just single, haploid cells, I became particularly interested in the reproductive cycle of mushrooms and how this intersects their structure.

However, one week I encountered a colony of mushrooms that had such different structures than anything I had ever seen before. I am convinced that had I not yet been desensitized to fungi from a semester’s worth of field studies, I would not have gone within three feet of these creatures. This particular group of mushrooms did not seem to have gills. Instead, the cap was a very round, puffy cloud-like shape, with a singular hole in the middle of the cap. Around the hole were small fragments of the cap that protruded outward, as if something had escaped from the inside of the mushroom. This observation led me to believe either the spores are located somewhere else on the mushroom, although I could not see where, or that these are in fact not mushrooms. It was October 17th that I had first made my observation of these seemingly spore-less mushrooms, but on November 8th when I returned to my spot, I had discovered my most confusing observation yet. The mushrooms had deflated, like a balloon. I was startled. This observation made me ponder what evolutionary advantages lead for these mushrooms to not have a convex, umbrella-shaped cap, or rather what benefits this shape provides. Throughout my observations this semester, my hypotheses have developed. I originally hypothesized that the umbrella-shaped cap provided protection from rain or harsh sunlight to protect the roots. I turned to the internet to (1) attempt to identify this strange species and (2) learn more about the function of gills and how mushrooms can grow without them.

Over the course of this semester, I have stumbled, fallen, crawled, climbed, and dug through layers of soil to find the most interesting fungi, of all shapes, colors, and sizes. From this experience, I have learned much about the cycles of growth and development of mushrooms, the conditions needed for them to thrive, and the function of their structure. However, I have also learned much about myself. As Canfield states "The value of taking field notes lies both in the actual information that is recorded as well as in what is gained in the process of recording itself" (Canfield 14). I have witnessed this to be true, and have felt so much more connected with my environment after being required to study my subjects outdoors each week. It is a privilege to be so heavily immersed in nature at a place like Kenyon, and I felt that I had not taken full advantage of this quality until I finished this class. I have discovered that the most beautiful, knowledge-dense items in the world are not necessarily the vibrant red mushrooms with white polka-dots you see in fairytales, but instead the tiny stems or dirty brown caps growing from small cracks in a decaying log.