Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard: The Mysterious World of Mushrooms, Molds, and Mycologists

The fungus world is all around us, like the world of bacteria. Several books have been recently published on these strange organisms and each has a slightly different slant on them. Actually the very term "fungus" has undergone an evolutionary change over the last few decades. Once part of the plant kingdom, fungi, minus several groups like slime molds and chytrids (although all are still covered in classes on mycology), now enjoy the status of their own kingdom. And a very weird kingdom it is indeed! Nicholas Money from the Department of Botany at Miami University in Ohio has, in his book "Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard," produced a fascinating set of essays on these organisms and the people who study them, from Ingoldian spores to John Webster and the phallic fungi.As a former resident of Gainesville, Florida, I was quite interested in his chapter on "Angels of Death." In it Money writes that he found Amanita virosa growing near Cedar Key in an area I used to frequent during my days as a graduate student. The destroying angel is a very dangerous mushroom that should be avoided at all costs as it usually kills anyone so unfortunate to eat it. Money's description of these and other fungi that produce nasty toxins certainly gives one pause.Other topics include the rather bizarre sex life of fungi, and the numerous fungal parasites and symbionts associated with humans. Finally the author gives us an equally fascinating description of Mr. Bloomfield's orchard, an untended apple orchard consumed by fungi.If you think that fungi don't matter, Money will change your mind, but if you are a bit put off by the subject don't read this book or your curiosity just might hook you into the Alice in Wonderland world of these "simple" organisms! In any case I recommend this book with only minor stylistic reservations. I slightly prefer Hudler's "Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds" for style, but this is just personal taste and has little bearing on content.

Put off by research findings on lethal aspects of some fungi spores. Bogged down in lab study reporting. However, FASCINATED by the book's section on early fungi researchers. Guess I enjoy social history more than natural science.Excellent book. Extensively researched and well written in readable style. But more for the college-level student than the casual, curious fungiphile.

The author of this book had strange sense of humor. Beneficially, he can hold your attention with his sexual descriptions and off the wall comments. You can't really go a chapter without laughing at one of his side notes. I really didn't have an interest in mushrooms but my botany nerd friend highly recommened it to me. I'm glad he did and I also recommend it to you due to it's cleverness.

This book is one of the best tours of fungi I have ever encountered. I have read it twice already and will refer to it again and again. The author writes in an informative style, with wit and seemingly unlimited knowledge of his field. This was a fun and educating read for sure.

I read while prepping for an intro mycology class that I never ended up teaching. It would have been a fun supplement to a textbook. But really, it's just good reading.

_Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard_ by Nicholas P. Money is an interesting introduction to the world of fungi and mycologists. The first chapter looked at mushrooms. He began with a discussion (and illustrations) of the infamous phallic mushrooms. Surprisingly, they shared more similarities with their namesakes than just their overall shape; while most of the volume of the erect fungal fruiting body is air, like in the mammalian penis its erection is maintained by pressurized fluid rather than any column of solid tissue (though in the case of mammals, it is blood, while the mushroom is supported by pressurized water). Many mushrooms like flowers rely upon insects (often flies) that they have attracted to disperse their spores. Stinkhorns and the Sumatran giant corpse flower evolved parallel features to attract carrion-feeding insects. Though mushrooms exist only for spore production and dispersal they are absolutely amazing feats of mechanical engineering. Spores are catapulted from spore-producing structures called basidia by immense mechanical forces. Thanks in part to the mushroom being cooler than its surrounding environment, water condenses on two different parts of the spore's surface. When these two globs of water become large enough to make contact, the resulting convergence produces enough power to hurtle a spore at thousands of g's away for a few milliseconds before it falls beneath the cap and is swept away by air currents (in the right lighting one can see a dusty plume of basidiospores swirling away). Some fungus though are not as water-dependent in their method of spore dispersal (such as puffballs, which expel their spores in response to any disturbance). As a result these mushrooms are able to colonize drier soils, even deserts. Chapter two looked at several fungal infections (mycoses), such as the infections of skin, hair, and nails caused by a group called dermatophytes and meningitis (which is caused by a yeast known as _Cryptococcus_). Fungi though are mainly opportunistic and many can only colonize human victims if there is already some injury or disease at work. There was a discussion of why many fungi are black. They possess melanin, a pigment like that found in human skin. This substance helps fungi avoid detection and destruction by the immune system when inside a body and for those on the exterior of buildings or rocks serves to protect the fungus's living cells from the damaging effects of solar radiation (this also protects the algal partner of lichen by the way). Chapter three looked at a very important aspect of understanding fungal biology, how they penetrate things. All fungi flourish by burrowing into solid substances and transforming them into food, whether they are leaves, wood, skin, a house, or even growing into granite to seek out food. In this chapter the author looked at the potent mechanical forces (using water pressure, an appreciation of which is vital in understanding fungal biology) and cell-wall degrading enzymes that fungi employ. The reader learns that fungi draw upon a "seemingly boundless catalog of enzymes to digest their surroundings" and that fungi are surprisingly flexible in this regard, that even fungi for instance that normally digest only plant tissues have an innate capacity to consume animal tissue, an astonishing nutritional flexibility. Chapter four examined the life cycles of some fungus species, how some fungi alternate asexual (anamorphic) stages with sexual (teleomorphic) stages. Properly naming fungi in the different stages of their life cycle is hard - "there is nothing more perplexing in the entire field of mycology" - and has lead to a vast number of fungi given scientific names twice because the observer discovered the fungi at only one part of its larger life cycle. Chapter four also featured discussions of ergot fungus (a pathogen of rye whose toxins can cause hallucinations and gangrenous hands and feet), truffles, lichen, and yeast (incredibly important to both human nutrition and biological research, though the author admits "hard as I have tried, I've never felt excited by this simplest of fungi"). The fifth chapter looked at two pioneering mycologists. Chapter six looked at two types of water fungi, the passive Ingoldian spores, which float through the water, if fortunate hitting a suitable new food source before it is eaten, buried in the mud, or carried away by the current to oblivion, and the zoospores, which are active swimmers, seeking new food sources (an example of the latter are the chytrids, which have been blamed in part for a worldwide decline in frogs). The seventh chapter looked at sexual reproduction and the production of fruiting bodies in fungi, particularly mushrooms. Surprisingly, some mushrooms are the result of group sex as they have developed after many compatible strains have fused in the soil. As a result, a single species of ink-cap mushroom for instance might encompass hundreds of different strains. When different strains of fungus meet, they either fight or fuse. If they fight, "warring mycelia attack their opponent's hyphae and produce thick, melanin-impregnated walls to resist each other's poisons" but if they fuse they produce fruiting bodies, whether it is a mushroom on the forest floor or a bracket fungus growing outside a tree. Chapter eight looked at mushroom poisons, whether they produce gastrointestinal distress, hallucinations, organ damage and failure, or death. Not all mycotoxins are produced by fruiting bodies, as non-fruiting mycelia produce substances called aflatoxins, traces of which can be found in many different foods. The author discounted notions that fungi are so toxic so as to kill off those who would eat them. As many of these toxins are very slow acting, sometimes taking weeks to take full effect, he believed that mycotoxins exist to target rival fungi and produce an extra supply of nutrients in the form of dead bacteria. The final chapter looked at fungal caused plant diseases, examining in particular black stem rust on wheat, potato blight, and rice blast, revisiting the complexity of fungal life cycles (which in some species involve different species at different stages), and also looked at mycoparasites (fungi that infect other fungi).

This is an excellent book about fungi, informative but not boringly so. Nicholas Money's style of prose makes this introduction to the fungal world both darkly humorous and informative. Even if the idea of fungi leaves you cold this is the book to convince you of the importance of these organisms in the natural ( and our own ) world. I would recommend this book to all who are interested in natural history ( as well as those who are not but enjoy a good read ). Shame that I am not education minister as I would be sorely tempted to make this compulsory science reading !

One of the most enjoyable popular science books that I have read in some time. The author is writing about an unusual subject about which he is obviously an expert, in an interesting, and entertaining way. His style is to focus in on particular aspects of the subject, and explain the science in a fairly non-technical way, making extensive use of anecdotes. The authors quirky, and at times slightly black sense of humour is evident throughout the book. While the coverage of mycology is accurate and up to date, this is not really a text book on the subject, however it has inspired me to look further into the subject.In summary if you are looking for a popular science book that is a little different from the usual fare, this one is well worth a try.