After decades in the dark, mushrooms and other fungi are finally having their moment in the sun.
Fungi have long been a source of fear and mystery in pop culture — from the mushroom-collecting title character in Nintendo's Super Mario Brothers franchise and their apocalypse-inducing role in game-turned-TV series The Last of Us, to the possibly psychedelic role they play in Alice In Wonderland.
From engineers to dancers, interest in the roles that mushrooms and other fungi can play in our society is growing.
Fascinating fungi
For ecologist and author Alison Pouliot, the world of fungus has always been fascinating.
But she has noticed a rise in the number of people attending her regular community workshops on fungi in recent years.
"Twenty years ago, there were two groups of people who'd come along [to my workshops] — foragers who wanted to know how to differentiate between edible and toxic species, and a few naturalists more interested in the distribution, ecology or science of fungi," Ms Pouliot said.
More recently that group of attendees has grown to include fashion designers that want to weave mycelium — the networks fungi form underground — into their designs, and bioengineers who are growing mycelium to produce bricks for building or packaging.
And that's not all.
"I had a dancer once who was choreographing a new dance based on the mycelial network, a crime fiction writer who wanted to know which mushroom could 'cure' a philandering husband, and I'm working with the emergency doctors at a Melbourne hospital who want to know the different types of toxins fungi have," Ms Pouliot said.
Misunderstood and maligned
Ms Pouliot said some of the mystery and misunderstandings around fungi stem from them being invisible for most of the year.
"Within English-speaking cultures, fungi were very much maligned," she said.
"They were seen only through a pathological lens as a cause of disease and death, whereas I think now we see their benefits."
While their popularity with chefs may be evergreen, the types of mushrooms we see in Australian supermarkets is very limited.
Button mushrooms, Portobellos and snowy whites are all the same species, Ms Pouliot explained.
"Sometimes it's also called a Swiss brown or a baby bella, but it's the same species with different marketing names, picked at different ages," she said.
"You cannot buy wild-picked fungi in supermarkets here like you can elsewhere in the world, [such as] in Europe.
"Except for some farmers' markets, you can only buy commercially grown species in supermarkets in Australia."
Not all fungi are fun
Ms Pouliot was quick to point out that most fungi-related poisonings in Australia were caused by just two species.
"One is called the Yellow-staining mushroom, and it looks just like a field mushroom but stains yellow when we scratch it — people don't always know to check for that," she said.
The other species is the death cap mushroom, which grows in association with oak trees.
"Think of all those lovely oak-lined streets in inner Melbourne, and eastern suburbs like Hawthorn and Balwyn — areas where there are lots of people," Ms Pouliot said.
"[While fungi cause] very few poisonings relative to other substances, and very, very few deaths … there is a risk if you're going to forage for mushrooms.
"It's something you have to have a deep knowledge about.
"You not only have to be able to recognise edible species, but the toxic doppelganger or look-alike species as well."
As the weather turns colder, Ms Pouliot warns potential foragers to be informed as more and more mushrooms begin to surface.
"We need a little bit more moisture, so after those first autumn rains, as the soil temperature starts to drop down, they'll appear," she said.
