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Published on Friday, August 20, 2021
 By Victoria Torley Fungi. Eaters of the plant world. Devourers of downed branches and trees. Consumers of dead leaves. Darn good thing, too, or we would be up to our eyeballs in all that stuff! Besides, yeast is a fungus, and without it, there would be no beer! No Beer? Heaven forbid! Also, no wine or soy sauce – just thought I’d mention them. Seriously, though, we depend on fungi for more than most people contemplate or comprehend. It’s not just the mushrooms in the salad or on your steak; fungi means life itself.  Fungi are strange characters. Unlike plants, they cannot use the sun for energy – they have no capacity for photosynthesis – but, like plants, they are not mobile. Fungi spores erupt from the parent body and float away in the air. Fungi are like animals – they get nutrients from sources other than direct sunlight. Then again, they are unlike plants. There is no cellulose in their cell walls. Part of all this confusion, although I doubt the fungi are confused, is that fungi diverged from the ‘tree of life’ about a billion years ago. When you look at a fungus, you are looking back in time. What else makes them strange and wonderful? The cell wall (back to biology 101) of plants is made up of cellulose with some glucan. Fungi use glucan. Animals do not have a cell wall; they have a cell membrane, but . . . arthropods are animals, and they have an exoskeleton made of chitin. Remember arthropods? Butterflies, lobsters, cockroaches, shrimp? All arthropods. So what is a fungus doing with glucan and chitin? I asked, but they aren’t telling me. It seems that way back there in the ‘tree of life,’ fungi got a little confused. They weren’t flora, and they weren’t fauna, so they just took what they needed and moved on. So we are left with a funny-looking bunch of fungi that don’t fit anywhere but are everywhere. So, besides dealing with all those dead branches, making beer, and rotting that apple you left out of the refrigerator, what good are they? Ah. There we have it. There is a wonderful fungus relationship with 90% of all plant life. It is called the mycorrhizal relationship. The mycorrhizal relationship is one of symbiosis between plants and fungi. The fungi actually attach themselves to the rootlets of plants and assist them in the uptake of inorganic compounds. This is particularly important when the soil is low in nutrients like nitrate, phosphate, and trace elements like copper and manganese. There are even online stores where you can buy a mycorrhizal mix of fungi and use it as a soil enhancer when you are putting in new plants. Where is it most important? Orchids. Orchid seeds are tiny and contain no food source, such as what we find in a green bean or pea seed. Orchid seeds will only grow when they land in an environment rich in mycorrhizal. As for those fungi you find growing in the wild? I like to bring them home and grind them up to make fertilizer. Fungi. Who knew? --------------------- Editor's note: More information on this article or about gardening, Ms. Victoria Torley, gardener columnist, can be reached at victoriatorley1@gmail.com  Professional's
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