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
gareth roi poet boi 