Photofungography: Lunteren.NL (Fall 2007)

(Click on the image if you want the high resolution picture)

To enjoy the wonders of mother nature you don't have to go far away but rather to look around. So obsessed with our daily life we rarely tend to appreciate what we have around us. Thus it makes perfect sense for me to take vacations and go as far away as possible from the place where I work just to remind myself of who I am and to be 'Me' once again. I need this experience of being free, in salvation.

Although I always get delighted remembering the good times: the mangroves of Bhitarkanika, The Fjords of Lofoten and the walk on Mount Etna. Then I look around and realize that one of the most memorable times that I have had was right in my backyard! It was only after I left IIT that I started remembering the turtle that I caught, those birds that flew in the classrooms, those great times I had on Mukhlal's bike, and the wonderful "anticipation of sight of Panther(s) scaring the shit out of me" experience when going somewhere in the night.



One such "backyard experience" that I had was when I went to my first national conference in Lunteren. It was my first ever experience with the colors of fall, and a forest in the Netherlands for that matter. I was so amazed to see the colors that I dived way deep into it. I became a 'bee' who roamed around enjoying the creativity of nature, what I now call a fungal experience.




I made a long walk in the forrest, enjoyed the colors of fall and photographed mushrooms. It was a wonderful experience. I returned back to Delft the next day and couldn't stop thinking about Mushrooms. I got so carried away that I started reading wikipedia articles about mushrooms, and fungus in general, and decided to classify all the mushrooms that I had photographed. Well! I had to give up eventually, there were too many of them. I learned a lot about Mushrooms and started eating them as well on a regular basis! Also, I learned that biological classification is highly complex and it keeps changing as new discoveries are made. Here, I am sharing the beautiful world of Mushrooms with you that gives a spice to everlasting colorful memories of being in forest during fall.




Gilled Mushrooms (agaricals or euagarics): These are most familier types of mushrooms. As the name suggests these have gills beneath the cap and a stem, indeed the stereotyped structure of what we would call a mushroom. They range from the ubiquitous supermarket mushrooms to the deadly destroying angel, hallucinogenic fly agaric to bioluminescent jack-o-lantern mushroom.




You can't miss sight of the fly agaric (Amanita) because of its bright red color as you can notice in the picture. Soma talked about in Rig Veda has been suggested to be an Amanita extract. It is famous for its hallucinogenic properties with its main psychoactive constituent being the compound muscimol. It was used as an intoxicant and entheogen in Siberia.





Polypores: These are tough, leathery poroid mushrooms similar to boletes, but typically lacking a distinct stalk. The polypores do not have the spore-bearing tissue continuous along the entire underside of the mushroom. Polypores are found on rotting logs as you see here and are rot-resistant to the extent that they themselves often last long enough for moss to grow on them. This is due to the mushroom's ability to produce compounds with anti-pathogenic activity. So they have some medicinal uses.




The one on the right is commonly known as Turkey Tail (Trametes Versicolor) is found worldwide. Polysaccharide-K (Krestin or PSK) is a protein-bound polysaccharide isolated from this fungi. It is used as an immune system boosting agent in the treatment of cancer in some European countries as well as in China and Japan. In Japan, PSK is approved as an adjuvant for cancer therapy.




Bolete: It is a type of fungi characterized by the presence of a pileus (cap) that is clearly differentiated from the stipe (stem), with a spongy surface of pores (rather than gills) on the underside of the pileus. I am not sure about the mushroom that I have in the picture is Bolete! Birch and Chestnus Bolete are common in Europe. It might be Chestnut Bolete.







Puffballs: The puffballs don’t consist of a visible stem. They are called puffballs because a cloud of brown dust-like spores is emitted when the mature fruiting body bursts. A powdery gleba on maturity is a feature of true puffballs, stalked puffballs and earthstars. False puffballs are hard like rock or brittle. All false puffballs are inedible, as they are tough and bitter to taste. While most puffballs are not poisonous, it shouldn’t be confused with some poisonous young agarics like Amanita (very poisonous). To be on the safe side they can be cut into half lengthwise before use. Puffballs were traditionally used in Tibet for making ink by burning them vigorously.




Is this the highest point of the Netherlands?

South Holland where I live is densely populated and so flat, I can't imagine a forest here. Then you go biking around Kijkduin or mountainbiking (!) in Schoorlse Duinen in Bergen (highest and widest dunes here). Netherlands is so amazingly flat that a 50 meter bump on the ground feels like a mountain. Walking around in the forest I was wondering "could it be the highest altitude point in the Netherlands". I checked later that 1/3 of the land is below sea level in the Netherlands where 21 percent of the people happen to live, the rest of them are not doing any better!! The highest altitude is actually 322 meters in south east. They say "God created the world, and the dutch created the Netherlands" and you know they are right if you have ever biked around in south Holland.