An Environmental Triumph 400 Million Years In The Making

An Environmental Triumph 400 Million Years In The Making

An Environmental Triumph 400 Million Years In The Making This story is part of Fungi Week, a deep dive into the myriad ways mushrooms and fungi make the planet a healthier place for all its inhabitants. It is supported by UPIC Health. E ach planting season, Claudia Bashian-Victoroff ventures out into Bole Woods, a 70-acre old-growth forest on the outskirts of Holden Forests & Gardens in the Cleveland suburbs, in search of fungi. But as she navigates the sugar maples, chestnut oaks, American beech and western red cedar that tower overhead, she focuses not on the forest floor but on what lies beneath.  Kneeling beside a stand of maples, she clears away the leaf litter to reveal the topsoil and digs up the first few inches, where the vast majority of soil microbes are active. Laced throughout, weaving an intricate, microscopic web, are the mycorrhizal fungi she’s after — fungi that have spent 400 million years learning to live in symbiosis with plants, including the trees throughout Bole…