Relaxing for an hour or so on a Sunday morning, with a piping hot cup of cold brewed coffee lovingly tucked in the palm of my hand, is one of my passions, especially if CBS’s Sunday Morning is on the tele.
Imagine my delight when the program recently featured another take on a legendary fungus. “In Search of a Humongous Fungus,” with correspondent Conor Knighton, revealed the find deep in the 1.7 million acre Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon.
So, how humongous is this armillaria ostoyae? The answer came authoritatively from Michael McWilliams, a pathologist with the U.S. Forest Service: just under 2,400 acres, which is about 3.7 square miles, even though it is largely invisible to the untrained eye.
The feature also included comments from Merlin Sheldrake, author of the Entangled Life, How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, one of our much respected books.
If you are intrigued by the prospect of encountering such a fungus, check out the printed edition of the feature online.