Next time you are out in the wilderness and you come across some mushrooms remember this interesting slice of biological pie; mushrooms may seem close to plants but this external resemblance is superficial, in terms of cladistics, fungi is more closely related to us than plants, here is a tree that demonstrates this:
We have a recent common ancestor we share with fungi, so next time you throw some mushrooms into a pasta sauce or salad, remember that the mushrooms are more closely related to you than they are to the lettuce ! Unlike lettuce we and mushrooms use external sources for energy. The texture of mushrooms can divide people up, some find it delightful and at the same others find it a dread, perhaps now we can embrace mushrooms as one of our own and get out of our naive intolerance of things not 'us'.
Subodh Gupta an Indian artist who uses domestic stainless steel pots to create some marvelous sculptors has already embraced the cohabitational relationship of the mushrooms in our homes, we can see the fruits of these ideas with his piece 'Line of Control' a mushroom cloud sculptor.
No comments:
Post a Comment