Symbiosis DOI 10.1007/s13199-016-0460-5
BOOK REVIEW
McCoy, Peter. (2016): Radical Mycology: a treatise on seeing and working with fungi Pp. ix + 646 pp., with b&w illustrations throughout plus a 16 pp. color insert. Portland, OR: Chthaeus press. (ISBN 978-0-9863996-0-2). Price $49.95 paperback. Available from www.chthaeus.com Scott LaGreca 1
Received: 13 October 2016 / Accepted: 21 October 2016 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
This huge (646 pp.) book is not just a book—it’s a movement! If you’re a mycologist, take heed. McCoy, a self-taught fungal whizkid from Portland, Oregon, USA, has written something that is as much introductory mycology textbook as it is Bhowto^ manual. I was originally introduced to the Radical Mycology community through McCoy’s unsigned booklet, BRadical Mycology: An SLF Primer^ (BSLF^ stands for BSpore Liberation Front^—McCoy’s appellation for his Bradical mycology^ movement), which I purchased at a farmer’s market in Brighton, NY. This book is a great improvement and expansion over that little pamphlet. In the first part of the book, McCoy explains basic concepts such as fungal nomenclature, taxonomy and lifecycles in a fun and creative manner. His love for fungi pervades his writing, leading to such nicknames as Bvocal fungi^ for diseasecausing species. His deep personal connection to these organisms, combined with his personal politics, leads him to call the Kingdom Fungi a BQueendom^. There’s also a fascinating chapter, BHerstory of women in mycology^, penned by two colleagues of McCoy’s, which follows a comprehensive review of ethnomycology (ie, the study of the traditional uses of fungi by humans). As I read through the first part of this book, it struck me how knowledgeable one can become these days via the internet, and voracious book-reading.
* Scott LaGreca
[email protected] 1
Plant Pathology Herbarium, School of Integrative Plant Science, Section of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, Cornell University, 334 Plant Science Building, 236 Tower Road, Ithaca, NY 14853-5904, USA
In the second part of the book, the author gives us a whirlwind tour of fungal identification, including directions on how to make your own microscope using a cellphone! The author also explains basic mycological terms (Bconk^, Bstipe^, etc.), often giving artful interpretations of them, for example, using the term Bstature^ instead of Bgrowth form^ when talking about macrofungal morphology. A 5¢ tour of the different types of mycorrhizae is also provided; more photographs and drawings to illustrate the author’s words would have been helpful here. The second part of the book ends with a recommendation that collectors deposit their finds in herbaria and/or culture collections, which is very good to see. In a related section—towards the end of the book—there are so-called Bspecies profiles^ for a handful of species (including lichens) that the author wishes to highlight as common and/or medicinally/chemically noteworthy. Don’t expect to identify fungi using this book—the selection of fungi is paltry, there are no keys, and the species profiles given are poorly illustrated (with murky black and white photos; mostly without scale bars). (Although, to be fair, full-color photographs of some are provided in a 16-page insert, in the middle of the book). In the middle of the second part, a chapter on BRadical Lichenology^ is presented—which was of special interest to me, as I’m a lichenologist by training. It’s written by a colleague of McCoy’s who seems quite knowledgeable about lichens; the sections on Seeing Lichens, Chemistry and Citizen Science are especially insightful. It is clear, however, from certain statements this author makes, that she isn’t a fully trained lichenologist. For example, her reference to the Btree of life anastomosing^ is an inaccurate and imprecise way to describe phylogeny, as anyone who has had courses in modern phylogenetic theory can tell you. Further, from the section on culturing lichens, it is clear the author doesn’t have any
S. LaGreca
experience in growing these organisms on media—she makes it sound simple, despite the fact that lichen fungi are notoriously difficult to grow. At the end of the chapter, she bizarrely describes how one can simply transplant a lichen from its herbarium packet back into its original environment and watch it grow—which would, of course, never happen; lichens, by and large, reject such physical manipulation. Throughout the chapter, however, her use of the lichen symbiosis as an analogy for how humans should evolve—i.e., modelling our relationships with each other on fungal-algal mutualism—is compelling, and gives much food for thought. The remainder of the book consists of large sections devoted to using fungi as food, medicine, building materials, and sources of psychoactive (hallucinogenic) substances. McCoy explains how to Bscale up^ original scientific (laboratorybased) research for use in agricultural operations and bioremediation projects; in doing so, he gives perhaps the most complete how-to guide for growing fungi that’s ever been published. (Again, murky black & white photographs don’t do his prose any favors). The problem with these sections of the book, however, is that science is presented alongside concepts such as alchemy, Bbiodynamism^ and the medieval BDoctrine of Signatures^. While the Doctrine of Signatures is certainly radical, it isn’t science. In presenting science together with these outdated concepts, he shows an ignorance of, and disrespect for, the scientific method. He presents some truly bizarre, unfounded ideas (from his own imagination) such as the idea that Bbiophotons^ are what causes basidiomycetes to form mushrooms—and that light may be a key in communication among fungi. He also asserts that the first complex life on Earth was probably fungal—including the origin of the first plant cell, via endosymbiosis. (He credits Moore’s 2013 book, Fungal Biology in the Origin and Emergence of Life, for many of these ideas.) Probably the strangest idea he presents is that life on Earth may have begun from lichens from outer space (Chapter 3). I should also point out that, time and again, McCoy anthropomorphizes fungi in his book. This is often whimsical and cute; but sometimes, you get the feeling the author genuinely believes that fungi want to help humans, which is not only unscientific, but rather unsettling.
In fact, the anti-science tone of McCoy’s book, and his love of just-so stories, is the biggest problem for this otherwise interesting and comprehensive mycology book. Even in the book’s Preface, McCoy eschews what he calls Bidentificationfocused^, traditional field meetings of mycological clubs. And his avoidance of these traditional means of interacting with the professional mycological world shows; I’ve been in this field for 25 years, but I don’t recognize a single person McCoy acknowledges in the Preface—none of them are professional mycologists, whom he would have met had he Bmade the rounds^ at mainstream mycological meetings and forays. (I don’t recognize any of his chapter co-authors, either.) I must say that the author seems to thumb his nose at professional mycologists, calling us Bmycoligarchs^ who horde our knowledge from the rest of the world. The truth is, the knowledge we have is hard-earned, borne of hours of rigorous, original scientific research. At the risk of sounding like an academic snob, I believe there is a lot to be said for traditional graduate schooling in the sciences. I will end this review on a positive note by pointing out that, unlike most mycologists, McCoy is a doer, and as such, he wants to put his well-earned mycological knowledge to work. To his credit, he strongly believes in the power of fungi to change the world—for example, through Bmycoremediation^ (bioremediation) of polluted environments. He yearns for a future when Western society will overcome its Bmycophobia^ to make better use of fungi as food sources, medicines and building materials. In addition, he’s a dreamer who relentlessly offers elegant analogies of how we, as a species, should mimic the nettedness of fungal mycelia to solve our human problems (a philosophy that reaches its ultimate expression in Part V, Chapter 11). I am confident that—even though readers are advised to verify some of the facts presented inside its pages—this unique compendium will become an important resource to those who seek enlightenment from the natural world.
References Moore D (2013) Fungal biology in the origin and emergence of life. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK ISBN: 9781107652774. 236 pp
