[.ca] Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds (ISBN 0691028737)

From Amazon.com:
Oh, to be young and eligible to enroll in Professor George Hudler's "Plant Pathology 101" class at Cornell! For those of us who aren't, this book is the next best thing--a hugely entertaining introduction to spore lore. Not only does he bring us up to speed on the fungus science, he relates the amazing impact of his branch of science on human history. The Eleusinian Mysteries that so inspired Plato and Sophocles were probably caused by ergot, which Tim Leary and the CIA put to scarier use in its refined form, LSD. Other fungal products are more upbeat: penicillin (Hudler tells a good story about British scientists who put its spores on their clothes in 1940, to preserve their research in case Germany invaded), cyclosporins, which permit such organ recipients as David Crosby not to reject their healthy new livers, and Beano, a derivative of alpha-d-galactosidase that suppresses flatulence in humans. Want to commit the perfect murder? Try aflatoxin, as a Graham Greene character does in The Human Factor. Do you dare to recreate the hallucinations of the Salem witches? Ergot's just the thing, as characters discover to their misfortune in Robin Cook's thriller Acceptable Risk. Hudler packs plenty of intriguing stories into a brief, readable book: exploding artillery fungus, spores spread by earthquakes that can cause anorexia, a 35-acre spread of 1,500-year-old identical mushrooms in Michigan that may be the oldest, biggest living thing on Earth. No question about it--Dr. Hudler is one fun guy. --Tim Appelo

It's not the beer, it's the mold on the peanuts!:
"Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds" is a highly readable trip into the kingdom of what I used to think of as some of the most disgusting organisms on Earth--the fungus responsible for athlete's foot, for one ('Trichophyton rubrum'). The author, George W. Hudler is Professor of Plant Pathology at Cornell University where he offers a popular course that has the same name as this book. He also edits "Branching Out," a biweekly newsletter for tree care professionals in the northeastern United States. In fact some of the bleakest chapters in "Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds" concern the majestic species of trees that used to shade the American landscape. "Under the spreading chestnut tree" is no more--done in by the fungus 'Cryphonectria parasitica.' Professor Hudler also includes a deservedly little-known poem by Robert Frost, "Evil Tendencies Cancel" whose subject is the chestnut blight. Dutch Elm disease, whose most common conida (spores) resemble jelly beans on tiny black toothpicks has blighted our landscapes since World War I when it was first discovered in Holland. This fungus can actually be controlled as long as communities are willing to sustain a commitment--unfortunately the city where I live ran out of money and/or enthusiasm for preserving these lovely old trees, and I've been watching them die off one by one ever since we moved here twenty years ago. Grim anecdotes aside, this book is a lively mixture of scientific fact and an overview of how fungi have changed our lives. For instance, most of us were taught that Dr. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin at St. Mary's Hospital in London in 1928. But Professor Hudler also relates that Joseph Lister, the father of antiseptic surgery used a penicillium mold extract to heal a young girl in Edinburgh in 1844. And three thousand years ago, the Chinese were using moldy soybean curd to cure skin infections. After explaining "What Fungi Do and How They Do it" in Chapter two, the author devotes several chapters to "Fungi as Pathogens of Food Crops." The fungus that turned Irish potato crops into a "putrid black mush" in the mid-eighteen-hundreds is 'Phytophthora infestans (once known as 'Botrytis infestans).' Potato blight also destroyed German food crops in 1915 and 1916, and over 700,000 Germans starved--possibly assuring the Allied victory over the Kaiser's troops in 1918. 'P. Infestans' also wreaks havoc in backyard tomato plantings in the northeastern United States (I can personally attest to this). Copper-based fungicide will control this fungus--in fact the Germans knew this during World War I, but their copper stocks were reserved for shell casings. Even more interesting is the chapter on "Ergot of Grain Crops" and ergotamine poisoning, which may have been responsible for such historical events as the medieval 'plagues of fire,' the witchcraft frenzies, and the Eleusian Mysteries in Classical Greece. LSD is only one of the alkaloids that can be derived from 'Claviceps purpurea,' the ergot fungus. Aside from deadly mycotoxins, putrid potatoes, and psychedelic mushrooms, the author also discusses fungi responsible for the production of life-saving drugs (not just penicillin), bread, beer, and wine. He goes into such loving detail over the production of the latter two yeast-based products that I'm led to wonder if he is an amateur vintner or brewer. Incidentally, I learned that it's not the beer that will kill frequent tavern-goers--it's the mold on the free peanuts, which manufactures a potent carcinogen! Another very interesting book for budding (sorry) mycologists is "In the Company of Mushrooms: a Biologist's Tale" by Elio Schaechter.

Fascinating:
This book is an interesting introduction to the science of mycology written for non-specialists. It covers numerous aspects of the field, including such topics as fungi as pathogens of food crops, mycotoxins, fungal diseases of humans, yeasts, and mushrooms. Hudler weaves historical information together with the biology of the fungi he describes. Although the book assumes no specific background knowledge in mycology, I did find a few sections a little heavy-going. I found myself wishing I had reviewed Biology 101 before reading chapter 1 on classification and naming, for example. Overall, though, the book is extremely informative and enjoyable to read.