Agarikon: fungus that could be medicine
Mother Jones magazine has a fascinating article about a fungus that grows on islands near Gabriola. (And who knows? Maybe it grows on Gabriola, too!) The article is Return of the Fungi:
In the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest grows a bulbous, prehistoric-looking mushroom called agarikon. It prefers to colonize century-old Douglas fir trees, growing out of their trunks like an ugly mole on a finger. When I first met Paul Stamets, a mycologist who has spent more than three decades hunting, studying, and tripping on mushrooms, he had found only two of these unusual fungi, each time by accident—or, as he might put it, divine intervention.
Stamets believes that unlocking agarikon’s secrets may be as important to the future of human health as Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillium mold’s antibiotic properties more than 80 years ago. And so on a sunny July day, Stamets is setting off on a voyage along the coastal islands of southern British Columbia in hopes of bagging more of the endangered fungus before deforestation or climate change irreparably alters the ecosystems where it makes its home. Agarikon may be ready to save us—but we may have to save it first. [continue]
I wonder if there are any agarikon fungi on Gabriola. You can bet I’ll be looking closely at every mature Douglas-fir tree I come across.
Here’s a 7-minute video that shows Paul Stamets finding an agarikon in Desolation Sound:
Related
- The Mushroom Messiah – ConservationMagazine.org
- Agarikon Conk As a Potential Smallpox Remedy – NPR Interview with Paul Stamets – npr.org
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