Life & Death

I've just been in the garden cutting the grass and tidying up. It's still looking green and quite lush even though the flowers have now all but gone. Adjacent our garden is a communal plot and some time ago a tree was removed. Putting the clippings in the compost bin I see that the roots seem to be food for this crop of mushrooms! You can see the tree stump (flat to the grass) just left of centre in the picture.

Mushrooms are the fruiting body of a fungus. Fungus forms an important part of the decay process, helping to breakdown wood and recycle the material. This picture shows part of the death of the tree root and the life of the fungus. But whenever I see fungus I can't help but focus on the decay side more than life side of this process. For me, fungus is a process of death. I think this is something to do with the fact that we are so connected with sunlight. Growth for us is connected with light. Plants are green to assist with photosynthesis. Fungus uses the work of the plant it is consuming to get its energy.