The unknown has long been misunderstood and feared. What we see when we buy, grow or pick mushrooms is only the fruit of the mushroom, not the whole living being. The rest remains hidden under the leaves, branches, in the organic matter, in the black forest humus - mycelium, a structure of microscopic threads (hyphae) that spread out searching for nutrients and moisture. Perhaps, the most mysterious thing about mushrooms is that they are a microscopic form of life that forms noticable fruit bodies, making them seem as if they appear out of nowhere, but they don't.

Don't be a mycophobe (scared of the unknown - the mushroom), life is life!

They live their microscopic lives, some in the ground (mycorrhizal fungi), connected to a tree's root system, trading the minerals they mine out of the soil (or out of a rock) for carbohydrates, a product of the plant's hard work, photosynthesis. This symbiosis is what connects the whole forest, plants exchange information and nutrients through the mushroom's amazing infrastructure. As this 2010 study has shown, plants (in this case, tomatoes) can tell each other to activate their anti-pathogen (in this case, Alternaria solani) artillery before the attack happens through the use of the mushroom's mycelium informational highway. This 2013 study has shown the same for insect bites. Most mushrooms live like this, as close to the plants as they could be.

Below, the poisonous and very hallucinogenic Fly agaric is too a mycorrhizal mushroom,

Above, a tinder mushroom we found on a beech tree that looks a little bit scary.

Parasitic mushrooms don't live in a symbiotic partnership, they attack the tree's woody tissues (some feed on living insects), depriving it off energy and digesting the tree alive, slowly killing it off. Then, the mushroom forms a fruit body on the bark of the tree, releasing spores to travel thousands of kilometers until they land on a new suitable host tree. In plant-parasitic mushrooms, the mycelium dies after it has killed the tree and released spores, but some even continue to digest the plant material after the plant has died. One example of a mushroom like this is the mushroom in the picture above, Fomes fomentarius, a mushroom which we best know by it's use as tinder material. Another is the honey mushroom (Armillaria mellea), which is in many places regarded as one of the best wild mushrooms, and a dangerous, fast forest plant-pathogen.

Below, a honey mushroom I cought killing and eating a conifer tree.

Other mushrooms are saprophytic, meaning that they digest moist, dead organic matter and use it as food. They effectively soften and mush leaves, branches, even whole trees, animal excrement or bodies, to help turn what is waste into black gold, humus, which is a readily available form of nutrients for plants and a home to diverse microscopic and insect forms of existance. Generally, these mushrooms are undigestable but are actually (as Paul Stamets said) a pharmaceutical factory that creates the most powerful naturally occuring substances with amazing medical properties. An example I will use here is a naturally abundant polypore mushroom that grows on dead wood, Trametes versicolor. It has antibacterial properties, it improves bones, and it has the potential to be used in treatment and prevention of several cancers.

Below, Trametes species I found forming beautiful fractals on deadwood.

I'm totally against the use of oil, but if people happen to use it and make a disaster out of it, mushrooms might help them clean up their mess. As Paul Stamets has shown in his TEDtalks presentation, the Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) can turn piles of oil-contaminated sawdust into food for a rich ecosystem. He goes on to explain his invention for bioremediation, mushroom strains he found that have great antiviral properties... He described his method for using a mushroom as the most effective pesticide on planet Earth, and finishes his video by talking about an ecological energy source, an ethanol alternative he invented that is created with the use of mushroom mycelia, creating and establishing new ecological communities, generating food for humans when the mycelium is discarded from the industry.

“Mushrooms are miniature pharmaceutical factories, and of the thousands of mushroom species in nature, our ancestors and modern scientists have identified several dozen that have a unique combination of talents that improve our health.”

― Paul Stamets

Now that we have a scratch of the understanding of what mushrooms really are, it's time to push it forward and apply it in our everyday lives. According to the American Journal of Botany, there are around 5.1 million fungi species on planet Earth, most of them scientifically under-researched, with great potential to be used in various applications. Aside from the medicinal uses, mushrooms can serve us as industrial workers. Mushroom mycelium is a resource that can be generated from waste at an astoundingly fast rate. Dryed and/or pressed, it can be used as a sophisticated animal-leather replacement, for furniture (replacing the glue), or even for the production of ecological, harm-free, pollution-free insulation and ecological, compostable, zero waste, BPA-free bio-plastics.

Welcome to mycotopia, a heaven on Earth fueled by mushrooms!

The mycotopic future is absent of animal slaughter, enslavement and suffering. Instead, people use mushrooms to make clothing, houses and furniture and to make their food taste better - mushrooms are one of the best vegan sources of the umami taste... An example of this is the horn of plenty mushroom (Craterellus cornucopioides), which a friend and I found bounty of while trying to find a new spot for chestnut gathering. You might think that 70 grams of dried mushrooms couldn't be bounty... To me, it means that we will eat tasty food all winter, because all I need is less than a gram to enrich a tasteless meal (and it doesn't have to be an every-day pleasure). Stay tuned for recipes (and for more mushroom related articles), I'm a little shy with my culinary inventions, but I'm sure I will share some very soon!

Below, an example of a horn of plenty mushroom we found,

The name horn of plenty, comes from greek mythology, a horn that was filled with whatever meat the owner wanted, symbolising bounty. Other than the shape, maybe the myth could be connected to it because the taste these mushrooms give to a meal is so stimulating to imagination and it could be used in so small quantities. I'm sure one day I'll make a Craterellus-based vegan meat substitute that all of you will think it is the real deal, with an even richer taste, with all animal suffering excluded!

When I talk about foraging for mushrooms, I can't stress some points first...

Poisonous look-alikes
You should always be 100% sure what mushroom you picked before eating it.

Food poisoning
The mushroom should never be old, moldy, foul-smelling or wormy when cut.

Bio-accumulation
Never pick a mushroom near a road or other source of pollutants.

Novice foragers could replace this mushroom with the Ashen chanterelle, Cantharellus cinereus - horn of plenty's much less humpy on the outside (sometimes completely smooth). The Ashen chanterelle is an edible mushroom too, but it doesn't have such a divine taste and smell. Ofcourse, all mushrooms with a stipe are automatically discarded as the horn of plenty doesn't have it. The black color and the shape of this mushroom serves a 'hide-in-plain-sight' purpose... You could walk through a forest with horns of plenty for hours without noticing them. As for searching for the spot, I tend to look for semi-steep slopes with enough humus and no visible signs of erosion. The forest itself should be beech mainly (as Craterellus is a symbiotic fungi) and as old as it can get. Craterellus grows both in the low hills and higher up the mountain, so don't limit yourself by that criteria. If you find a spot, be sure to remember where it is, as you might be picking these black beauties many more years to come on the same spot because the mycorrhizal mycelium keeps living and fruiting every year that's favorable for it. When you pick them, gently pull them out of the soil with the part of the mushroom that is burried in the ground (if you don't, it might hurt the mycelium), put it in a basket and on a piece of paper when you get home. I always put a ventilator next to them, directed a little above the mushroom, enough to blow away all evaporating water, but not the mushrooms. Depending on your room temperature, they should be dry in 2-3 days, do a crack-check... If the mushroom cracks when you bend it, it's dry. Pack them in a jar and they're ready for the winter!

Below, a bounty you could pass by without noticing and below it, the harvest we acquired,

I hope this post was interesting and useful to you as it was fun for me to make... Mushrooms, the oldest form of life on this planet, are one of the most interesting parts of biology to study, and the knowledge can but does not need to be applied directly, it can be used as inspiration. Stamets once speculated, "Mycelium is the Earth's natural internet", and I want to twist and push that idea forward and say that the internet is the mycelium of the people. It helps us know about and understand our environment... When we share our experiences and what we know here on Steemit, we receive back a form of energy, it is the perfect symbiosis of people and technology. Thank you all for supporting what I do by sharing this content, following, commenting and upvoting! It really restores some hope in humanity. Steem on, garden on, forage on, live on!