The Ephemeral Beauty of Mushrooms

Of the thousands of plant species that grow in the park where I walk, mushrooms are the least conspicuous. Late autumn and early winter in Greece feel like a season in itself, with mild damp weather stretching into December, sometimes even January. As different species of mushroom grow in their own time within this extended window, there is never a sudden abundance of them, rather a quiet, subtle, but constant emergence of different mushrooms, some marking the edges of paths, others growing silently in the dense, damp undergrowth where the roots of pine trees disappear into the ground.

The first ones to appear, sometime around early November, are the most mysterious, with long white stems and caps that are ink-black, staining the skin for days, punishment for the unsolicited contact, or a desperate attempt at lingering for longer, even if on a foreign body. As opposed to most, that disappear without a trace from one day to the next, these die dramatically, collapsing gradually, as though weighed down by the sheer weight of their ephemerality. Like opera heroines, they die reluctantly, twisting and bending, as they collapse into the paths, as though to say ‘look at me, I’m dying!’ Others are pale, delicate, their thin, moon-white stems almost too frail to hold their disproportionately large caps, but if you look closely, you can see the light filtering through the fine lace and gills, diaphanous and weightless. They never last for more than two, three days, leaving no trace of their brief existence. Others are sturdy and dense, with stocky white stems and dark brown drooping caps. They often grow in twos, and can look like pairs of old gnomes hanging out in silence in the forest.

Mushrooms, of course, have wonderful properties. Some are nutritious, many medicinal. Few, if any, of the mushrooms growing in the park are edible, however, and I don’t know enough about them to take the risk. Until recently, in fact, I was hardly aware of any of them at all, my curiosity more drawn to the herbs and medicinal plants that grow throughout the park and forest: four kinds of rockrose, mallow, wild sage and helichrysum, st. John’s wort, thyme, rosemary and oregano. But there is an attachment that comes with plants one forages. The care required to forage in a way that is sustainable and kind is one that demands emotional involvement. I never pick too many leaves from any one plant, never pick the most prominent flowers bees can access easily. I never pick from young or frail plants, or those that seem to be struggling to get some much-needed sunlight. Even though there are thousands, over the years I have grown to know many of them, notice how they are faring in different seasons, remember the location of the more delicate ones and make sure to find them after the occasional heavy snowfall to shake their leaves free. There are stories attached to them too: the first st. John’s wort I identified, the rockrose plants that border the spot above the threshing circle where I have sat every single morning in the twelve years I have walked daily in the park, that have become silent companions, witnesses of my conversations with Daphne, my dog, of my changing moods. And so many more.

But as I grow older, I feel the weight of such attachments, as though as my body ages, it is less able to carry the reality of inevitable change and loss. Like drops of dark ink in water, my thoughts on my walks with Daphne are ever so slightly darkened by a tinge of sadness at the realisation that there are fewer walks ahead of us than behind us; that a fire, one of many that burn in the country every summer, might wipe out the forest overnight; that the unstoppable momentum of development makes the survival of this urban forest less certain by the day.

Perhaps this is why I have grown fond of mushrooms. Perhaps it is my need for relief from the fear of loss that has made me love their transience, their brief existence making no promises, asking no commitment, requiring no care or protection.

More than anything, I think it is my increasing awareness of my own mortality, our own ephemerality, that has brought mushrooms into my life as I get older. The reminder, every time I notice one, so perfect and unassuming, that everything, indeed, has a season, and that some seasons are very brief. They offer a kind respite in a world so focused on the future, on preparing for later, on laying groundwork and making plans. They are of the present moment. They make me pause and notice because I don’t know if they’ll be there tomorrow. And when I pass the place where they were and look for them, incurable in my desire for continuity, for certainty, their traceless disappearance fills my heart with a lightness I have never known before. Attend to mushrooms, A R Ammons once said, and all things will answer up. I think I am beginning to understand what he meant.