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Terry Noland – “Fungus Among Us” – 1958

I am not old enough to remember the song being released but was reminded of the fungus among us line as I took an afternoon walk through some autumn woods on Sunday and found a proliferation of fungi.

They were everywhere on the ground, popping up from under fallen leaves, bending their heads over the river’s edge, spreading across the river bank and into the fields, gathering in groups at the base of trees like little hooded monks at a meeting.
There were tiny dainty butterfly-like fungi fluttering up old tree trunks in the thousands and topping it all off, the grand sounding, wonderfully named and enormous Fomes Fomentarius dangling further up the trunks of the hardwoods. I guess a perfect combination of heat, moisture and light created this abundance of fungus.

The Fomes Fomentarius is also called a hoof fungus because it looks like a hoof. It is also called tinder fungus, and sometimes called Iceman fungus because Otzi, the 5000 year old Iceman was found to be carrying four pieces, presumably as fuel. Hoof fungus can be almost two feet in height and width. The ones I saw were about 12 inches and looked more like baby elephant feet than hooves. They were tall and round with smooth flat pads on the bottom. The latin name has a great ring to it…Fomes Fomentarius. It has historical significance as a fire starter because its insides spark. It is inedible, but has been used to make amadou, a material for tinder and clothing. Some of them high up looked like giant paper wasp nests they were so big.
Photo below.

Nature put on quite the show of mushrooms for me and my dog although all I saw seemed of the poisonous or at least inedible variety so I let them all be.

I crossed paths with only one other person in my two hour walk through the woods… a sturdy lady with a heavy slavic accent who appeared out of nowhere with a giant red, white and blue supermarket bag filed to the brim with small golden mushrooms. I asked her how she intended to use them. She told me they were for her mother in law. Hmm.