The Science of Fungi | Tumble Episode
- tumblepodcast
- Sep 29, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 19
Do fungi breathe? 🍄 Join us as we hear from fungi expert Lee Davies, the collection manager of the Fungarium in Kew Gardens. We’ll discover the secrets of fungi together. What kinds are there? Why does Lee collect them? And are some fungi…. zombies?? 🧟 Tune in to learn more about these amazing organisms and our punniest episode yet!
Learn more about fungi and Lee's job in our bonus interview extra on Patreon!
🎧 Listen to the Episode
🔎About The Featured Expert
Lee Davies is the collection manager of the Fungarium in Kew Gardens in London, England. Lee curates Kew's Fungarium collections and facilitates access to these collections so some awesome scientists can research some fungi.
The Kew Gardens, Lee's workplace, is stunning. Brimming with flora, Kew boasts over 50,000 living plants and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The glass you are seeing here is the world's largest Victorian glasshouse!
However, let's stick to fungi, shall we? Here's a tour of the Kew Fungarium!
Fungal Fun
Lee features in a neat video from Kew. He showcases the oh-so-smelly squid fungus! Gross, but cool!
Speaking of gross, remember the zombie fungus that Lee discussed in the episode? Here's Lee on a quest for the zombie fungus:
If you want to read more about zombified fungus bugs, check out this New York Times article. It's... a little scary.
Finding Fungi
As Marshall mentioned in the episode, you can use the app/website iNaturalist to identify your fungus finds! Click the green bird to find out more.
Lee has some tips on how to spot fungi! This is super useful stuff when you look around outside.
As mentioned in the Patreon bonus episode, here's a video from Kew Gardens of a Zoned Rosette fungus! They found it on a fungi-spotting journey!
🫶Support Tumble!
Click here to become a Patron! Ad-free early access to episodes is just $1/month, and for just $5/month, get a birthday shout out on our feed!
Click here to visit the Tumble Merch Store! T-shirts and other merch (including merch specific to this episode) are available for purchase.
