There is a great, third kingdom of life lying hidden at our feet – that of the fungi. So ubiquitous are they that they also lie hidden in our feet: around a hundred species have been recorded on the human foot alone. The other two kingdoms of multicellular life – plants and animals – are obvious to us. If we think about fungi at all, we tend to associate them with plants. But fungi are in fact more closely related to animals, and this relationship is reflected in their chemistry. For example, both fungi and animals produce the light-sensitive proteins known as opsins that are present in the rod and cone cells of animal eyes. Astonishingly, these proteins allow fungi to “see” colour.
According to Merlin Sheldrake’s passionately and convincingly argued Entangled Life, we have fundamentally misunderstood fungi. It is not mushrooms, but the “wood wide web”, the ecosystem highway and the fungal mind that we should think of when we hear the word “fungi”. It’s hard to believe that Entangled Life is Sheldrake’s first book. A pioneer of soil fungal research in the tropics, Sheldrake has the rare ability of translating his own and others’ highly technical findings into riveting prose. With its delightful illustrations, all drawn using ink derived from the shaggy ink cap mushroom, the book is a sensory as well as an intellectual pleasure.
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