things to do with fungus
hey its oh and well if
debris:
Catnip, catnap. Do you see where I’m going with this?
and then also:
hey, this week I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio version or check out the a/v version on Instagram!
If the ocean went on forever, and never shut out the light.
That’s what I think a blue morning glory flower looks like. It’s impossible to see, that description I just gave, but I think morning glory flowers are a bit impossible to see as well.
I’m thinking here of Ipomoea purpurea, the species of morning glory you are most likely to come across in an American garden, or trundling down an American back alley. Some people grow it intentionally, and the rest of us receive the gift of last year’s seeds.
Those seeds can induce an impossible vision, too. In 1960, scientists found that the seeds of certain morning glory species contained alkaloids—organic compounds which can have psychoactive effects. This was no surprise to Zapotec, Chinantec, Mazatec, and Mixtec people in Central America, who used those same seeds for ritual purposes. What neither scientist nor shaman knew, however, was that the morning glory plant doesn’t produce the compounds on its own. They’re the result of a symbiotic relationship between the morning glory plant and one of a number of fungi which grow along and through the morning glory’s stems, leaves, and flowers. Some of those fungi also infect wheat plants, producing ergot alkaloids which are the chemical foundation for LSD. Rather than spreading like a virus—from individual to individual—these fungi grow inside the ovaries of a plant, becoming part of the seeds themselves.
In fact, a 2021 paper by Wesley Beaulieu and colleagues reported that different species of morning glory play host to different strains of fungus—meaning that they’ve co-evolved for millions of years. And without the fungus, morning glory plants can’t produce vision-inducing chemicals. Scientists proved this by spraying morning glory plants with fungicide. The treated plants, when studied in the lab, contained no ergot alkaloids. But while we can grow fungus-free morning glory plants, researchers have been unable to grow the fungus in the laboratory by itself, suggesting that the morning glory plant provides something integral to the fungus’ success.
People saw something within morning glory’s seeds, but vision is never straightforward.
Things don’t always come from where you imagine.
And there are always others present.
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I recently borrowed a self-propelled lawnmower from a friend, and my life is changed.
Loved this <3