The Hidden Forest 

with Susan Goldhor - Boston Mycological Club

 We all know what the forest looks like.  What very few of us know are the hidden organisms that nourish, protect, infect and destroy the visible portions of our ecosystems.  More than 90% of the world's plants have fungal partners, without which the world would be a vastly different place.  Fungi form an entire kingdom, more closely related to animals than to plants.  Like us, they depend on plants for oxygen and carbohydrates.  And, like us, they have a complicated relationship with the plant kingdom, acting sometimes as good gardeners and sometimes as destroyers.  One lecture is not enough to tell you everything about this relationship but we promise that you'll never see the forest in quite the same way again.

Susan Goldhor is a biologist who is the President of the Boston Mycological Club, the oldest such club in the nation.  Her essays about fungi, which have focused on their roles in ecoystems, have been widely praised for their clarity and style, as well as for popularizing aspects of fungi that have generally been the province of specialists.