Mycelium running

how mushrooms can help save the world

English language

Published Jan. 18, 2005 by Ten Speed Press.

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3 stars (1 review)

Mycelium Running is a manual for the mycological rescue of the planet. That’s right: growing more mushrooms may be the best thing we can do to save the environment, and in this groundbreaking text from mushroom expert Paul Stamets, you’ll find out how.

The basic science goes like this: Microscopic cells called “mycelium”--the fruit of which are mushrooms--recycle carbon, nitrogen, and other essential elements as they break down plant and animal debris in the creation of rich new soil. What Stamets has discovered is that we can capitalize on mycelium’s digestive power and target it to decompose toxic wastes and pollutants (mycoremediation), catch and reduce silt from streambeds and pathogens from agricultural watersheds (mycofiltration), control insect populations (mycopesticides), and generally enhance the health of our forests and gardens (mycoforestry and myco-gardening).

In this comprehensive guide, you’ll find chapters detailing each of these four exciting branches of what Stamets has coined …

2 editions

Mycoremediation: building worlds through fungi

3 stars

Paul Stamets is one of the celebrities of the current fashion of all things mycological. He is well documented as a passionate lover of fungi and he is an excellent communicator. Mycelium Running is often considered his key book on many aspects of what he has learned through a lifetime of work in forestry and botany. It is presented like a school text-book, with full colour images and multiple paragraphs per page.

The first half of the book explores some of the literature of fungi and mushrooms, and some of the new developments in this area. A lot of emphasis is placed on the potential uses of fungi, for example in industry as a gobbler of pollutants. Stamets writes like a teacher, explaining in simple paragraphs how mycelia work, how fungi grow, what a mushroom is. He then leaps into some very technical information about patents on uses of fungi, …

Subjects

  • Mycelium.
  • Mushroom culture.
  • Fungi -- Ecology.