Customer Reviews

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

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a charming personal take on what most people think of as a charmless subject  fungi. The author teaches in a university botany department. These days its clear that fungi are actually more closely related to animals than they are to plants, but they have always been thought of as a vampirish offshoot of the plant kingdom, so to botany departments they go.

This is not really a primer on fungal structure and function, but it does manage to quickly give us a feel for the basics. Fortunately, it is possible to get to the fungal forefront, as it were, relatively quickly. These are fairly simple creatures, as creatures go. (Of course, the simplest cell is complex beyond our most complicated machines.) They are more colonies (or rugged individuals) than multicellular beasts, and most of the action centers in figuring out how they reproduce, and the cocktail of chemicals they use to go where no fungus has gone before.

In this book the author talks about a range of topics, such as human and animal fungal pathogens, how the different kinds of fungi make a living, fungal sex, poisonous mushrooms, and so on. But he also profiles some of the more eccentric (and productive) researchers in the field. In the course of the book, in many ways, he profiles himself as well. Our author turns out to be a thoroughly engaging sort, humanistic and unpretentious. Youll like him, and learn something about 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.

Wow! I never thought Id enjoy a book on fungi this much. Parts of it are not a particularly easy read, but the information it contains is mind blowing. Forget terrorists; if fungi and mold decided to take out the human race it would be no contest.

We tend not to think of fungi as being a very important part of our world. We might occasionally have mushrooms on pizza or steak, we might notice fungi growing on an old tree or on something that has been kept too long in the refrigerator, but thats about it. In fact fungi has a vast influence in our world, from breaking down fallen trees in the forest to making our bread and beer. Have you ever wondered how dandruff was formed? Guess what plays a major role.

The writer, who presents often bizarre information with wit and style, reminds us that one fungi, covering 2000 acres in Oregon, is thought to be the worlds largest living organism. Even the more prosaic information comes to life in this book - I enjoyed his description of the speed a spore is catapulted from a gill.

Some of the most interesting sections are the mini-biographies of scientists who have researched fungi and added to our knowledge of them. There was Buller, for instance, a professor whose students called him Uncle Reggie, and Ingold who found a totally unknown kind of fungus in water. There are now over 300 species of Ingoldian fungi known and in fall you can find about 20,000 of them in every litre of brook water.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the natural world. Youll need to expend a little effort reading the more scholarly parts of it, but youll learn some amazing stuff about fungi, mold and the scientists who discovered them.

_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).

I had never considered mycology, the study of mushrooms, molds, and fungi, to be particularly interesting, once again demonstrating how wrong I can be. I had trouble breaking away from this oddly titled book, Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard. The author, Nicholas P. Money, a research mycologist, has an infectious enthusiasm and a delightful sense of humor, as well as that rare ability to create exceptional science literature for the educated reader.

Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard is more challenging than most popular science books; it is sufficiently detailed to make ideal supplementary reading for biology undergraduate students. I can well imagine that Money's book will be responsible for a surge in applicants to mycology graduate programs.

I was especially fascinated by the complex life cycle of various molds and fungi, their incredible resistance to extreme temperatures, toxic chemicals, and radioactivity, and their remarkable ability to draw upon a seemingly endless set of enzymes to digest their surroundings, whatever that might be. A particular fungus that kills grass on the golf course and never feeds on animals in the wild, has demonstrated the innate capability to consume animal tissue when isolated in the lab from vegetative matter. Money speculates that this remarkable adaptability of molds and fungi offers profound insights into their long evolutionary history, some 3.5 billion years. It somehow seems fitting that there are indeed molds that specialize in consuming other molds.

Money injects humor, and occasional social comment, into his account of fungi and friends. He mentions for example: A black mold is working on a shampoo bottle in my shower, which is ironic because the contents are supposed to possess antifungal properties that suppress dandruff (this fungus is in for a surprise if it breaks through the plastic).

Five stars for Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard - The Mysterious World of Mushrooms, Molds, and Fungi.

Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard is far and away the best introduction to the science of mycology for general audience readers and mycology devotees alike. Nicholas Money has a way with words, and his dry sense of humor makes this book a pleasure to read. The one-star review on this page by "Johnny" represents a misguided interpretation of Money's irreverence. The book is certainly NOT racist, and Money makes fun of Western cultures with equal wit (incidentally, I am a Chinese American--one who has studied racist discourse and Orientalism).

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.

Here is a direct quote from page 6 of the book: "...it is a tragedy in a country as populous as China that anything from tiger turds to whale afterbirths can be sold as long as the suggestion is made that their consumption enhances erectile function." What racist garbage! Here is another Eurocentric writer making judgements on another culture. It reminds me of the explorers on Darwin's Beagle who tried to "civilize" the Tierra del Fuego "savages".

I am disappointed that Oxford University Press would allow such ignorant comments to be published in a book whose primary audience is "educated" people. It is sickening that a book like this is published without anyone questioning the appropriateness of such offensive remarks.

I'm sorry, but I put the book away after reading the first chapter, and I am sorry that I wasted $14.95.