Dr. Fungus, M.D.

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an independent reporter, born in 1987. She works alongside Szymon Opryszek, with whom she published the books “Tańczymy już tylko w Zaduszki” [We Only Dance on All Soul’s Day Now] (2016) and “Wyhoduj sobie wolność. Reportaże z Urugwaju” [Grow Yourself Some Freedom: Reportage from Uruguay] (2018). A lover of Latin America and life in the countryside.

The primaeval Białowieża Forest is populated with fungi that might help treat the most dangerous diseases, including cancer. The trouble is, human activity could drive them into extinction before many of them are ever discovered and studied.

For several years now, the town of Hajnówka on the outskirts of Białowieża Forest has been home to an unusual bank. Much like other such institutions, it offers people hope for a better tomorrow. However, stored away inside this remarkable bank is not money, but rather… fungal extracts. Its staff scour the forest to collect both rare and common fungi that exhibit astonishing properties. These fungi are generally not mushrooms of the familiar stem-and-cap variety. More often than not, they are fungal growths found hidden amid tree roots, attached to living trees, or colonizing dead trunks.

The bank was established at the initiative of Sławomir Bakier of the Institute of Forest Sciences at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, Białystok University of Technology. In the interview he gave me, he explained: “The Białowieża Forest is an invaluable and rich source of fungi. It is particularly abundant in polypores, which are associated with deadwood. Some of them are endemic to the forest, which means that they can be found only there. Many of them have untapped medicinal potential.”

Polypore and chaga

Inspiration for the establishment of the

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Maria Hawranek:

an independent reporter, born in 1987. She works alongside Szymon Opryszek, with whom she published the books “Tańczymy już tylko w Zaduszki” [We Only Dance on All Soul’s Day Now] (2016) and “Wyhoduj sobie wolność. Reportaże z Urugwaju” [Grow Yourself Some Freedom: Reportage from Uruguay] (2018). A lover of Latin America and life in the countryside.

Translation: Daniel J. Sax

Publish date: 18.09.2020

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Maria Hawranek:

an independent reporter, born in 1987. She works alongside Szymon Opryszek, with whom she published the books “Tańczymy już tylko w Zaduszki” [We Only Dance on All Soul’s Day Now] (2016) and “Wyhoduj sobie wolność. Reportaże z Urugwaju” [Grow Yourself Some Freedom: Reportage from Uruguay] (2018). A lover of Latin America and life in the countryside.

Under the forest litter, trees build a network of connections that could be the envy of humans. It transports not only nutrients, but also information – about fires, droughts and environmental conditions. This speech of trees, and the relationships connecting them, were discovered by a certain persistent Canadian.

In one of the chapters of his book The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben gives a rather enigmatic description of how it was proved that various trees species can communicate. He doesn’t, however, refer us to the research. The secret behind that mysterious experiment is an extraordinary woman and her ground-breaking discoveries from 35 years ago, which permanently changed our perception of trees. They initiated a whole range of research regarding the symbiosis of trees and mushrooms at the Faculty of Forestry (University of British Columbia, Vancouver). On Polish Wikipedia, almost every other piece of information concerning mycorrhizal networks refers to the research co-authored by the Canadian. Recently she also inspired Richard Powers, author of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Overstory. The writer used her biography to create the fictional character of the dendrologist Patricia Westerford.

Polypore and chaga

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The Subterranean Brain of the Forest

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