Paleo evidence of fungi is naturally limited, their bodies being soft & squishy & such. But some lifeforms have been found frozen in rock. This is about them, the Adams & Eves of the fungi family, well not tree, but you get what I mean.

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Prototaxites

imagine a quiet landscape : strange &
surreal to our cellulose-centric : eyes : 
400 million years past : before flowers : 
before forests : & long : before dinosaurs

most plants barely : tickling ankles : no 
trees : no reptiles : no shade : probably 
even very little sound : nothing for 
the wind to whisper wispily through

but rising from the ground : grand 
pillars : things : neither of stone :
nor wood : taller than a typical house
vertical structures : fingers pointing

while mammals still swam : the primordial ocean
this potential precursor to fungi : is king

*Scientists debate what Prototaxites actually was: a giant fungus, a lichen-like 
organism, or a completely extinct branch of life with no modern descendants. 
But let’s not let mere quibbles stand in the way of a nice sonnet.

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Factoid 3 – Lightning can speed up mushroom growth & potentially double production  

mycelia celebrations

lightning strikes
mushrooms multiply

mycologists  myco
philes  &  mycophagists

celebrate thunder 
dance in storms