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ArtistRichly textured watercolour, oil pastel, ink, salt infuse painting of Watercolor painting of a fairy swinging on a spider's web beneath an old growth ancient forest, mist, soft moonlight, a multitude of minuscule specks of sparkling cosmic lights along a pathway, toad sitting atop a spotted mushroom, forest trail, rivulet, tiny wildflowers, moss, ferns, 1800s,Gustave Jean Jacquet, Edward Robert Hughes, Vasily Toprinin, Alexei Alexeievich Harlamov, Ramon Casas, Arthur Rackham, Monet
Poem by
ROSE FYLEMAN
IF you will come and stay with us
You shall not want for ease;
We'll swing you on a cobweb
Between the forest trees.
And twenty little singing birds
Upon a flowering thorn
Shall hush you every evening
And wake you every morn.
If you will come and stay with us
You need not miss your school,
A learned toad shall teach you,
High-perched upon his stool.
And he will tell you many things
That none but fairies know
The way the wind goes wandering,
And how the daisies grow.
If you will come and stay with us
You shall not lack, my dear,
The finest fairy raiment,
The best of fairy cheer.
Well send a million glow-worms out,
And slender chains of light
Shall make a shining pathway-
Then why not come to-night?
FAERIES AND MUSHROOMS
WHAT’S THE CONNECTION?
WELL, WHEN THE POEM MENTIONS…
Swing you from a cobweb beneath the forest trees…
THIS REMINDS ME …
of the
mycelial network
beneath
the
ground.
above ground
fungi are made apparent
by the mushrooms,
their fruiting bodies.
underground they form
complex networks
scientists
call this the
wood-wide-web.
in fact
there are
TWO
wood-wide-webs.
ONE
is made by
the decomposing
that FUNGI do,
as they reach out
and connect
various different
dead resources.
The
SECOND
wood-wide-web
is formed between
fungi and living plants,
especially trees.
hungry for food,
fine fungal filaments
called hyphae
search for tree roots.
species known as
mycorrhizal fungi
use their mycelia
to envelop or
penetrate
plant roots,
contributing water,
nitrogen compounds
and mineral salts
in exchange
for sugars.
This is much more
than simply trade.
The entire forest
is connected
through the
fungi.
when a sapling
is languising
in the shade
of a larger tree,
FUNGI
CAN SENSE
the PROBLEM
and SEND
extra NOURISHMENT.
The distance travelled
by the hyphae
under one
single foot
can be as much as
500 kilometers;
and more!
IT IS A
VAST NETWORK
transporting
everything
a forest needs!
Thus, this
partnership
with the roots of trees
gave rise to
entire forests.
This network
also serves
as nature’s internet
allowing all intertwined
within this network
to communicate;
even danger signals
are sent along this
network.
it’s as If the forest isn’t made
out of individual trees,
but more like
it is operating
as a super-organism.
connected by the
fungal network,
a lush and vibrant earth
emerges.
