Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World
by Paul Stamets
Published by Random House - October 2005 - Paperback - 344pp - 23cm x 18cm
A manual for healing the earth and creating sustainable forests through mushroom cultivation, featuring mycelial solutions to water pollution, toxic spills, and other ecological challenges.
Mycotechnology is part of a larger trend toward using living systems to solve environmental problems and to restore ecosystems.
This book includes mycological projects for children (and kids at heart) and more than 50 full-color photographs of mushrooms, mycelium, mycotechnology in action, growing techniques, and so on.
It provides detailed how-tos for growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms — allies to the immune systems of both humans and our planet. Topics include techniques for germinating spares, transplanting wild mycelium, and creating natural spawn.
'Stamets is a visionary emissary from the fungus kingdom to our world, and the message he's brought back in this book, about the possibilities fungi hold for healing the environment, will fill you with wonder and hope.' — Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire
'In this respectful and casual way, Paul brings depth and clarity to the complexity of fungi and its place in the natural order, all the while engaging us in fungi knowledge for healing our planet.' — Guujaaw, president of the Haida Council, Haida Nation
'This is the first book to give the Kingdom of the Fungi its proper place in the scheme of things. It is the most important book on nature that I've seen in years' — Gary Lincoff, author of National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms
'Stamet's best work to date, Mycelium Running provides a wealth of information showing how fungal mycelia and mushrooms can profoundly improve the quality of human life. Should be mandatory reading for government policy makers.' — S. T. Chang, professor emeritus, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Paul Stamets, founder of Fungi Perfecti (www.fungi.com), has been a dedicated mycologist for more than thirty years. He is the 1998 recipient of the Collective Heritage Institute’s Bioneers Award and the 1999 recipient of the Founder of a New Northwest Award from the Pacific Rim Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils. Stamets has written five books on mushroom cultivation, use, and identification and numerous articles and scholarly papers on medicinal, culinary, and psycho-active mushrooms, including Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms.
