Richard Fortey - Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind
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| Date | Saturday 16th November 2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| Time | 4:00 PM | |
| Doors Open | 3:15 PM | |
| Venue | The Dembe Theatre (Formerly The Court Theatre) | |
Professor Richard Fortey has been a devoted field mycologist all his life. He has rejoiced in the exuberant variety and profusion of mushrooms since reading as a boy of nuns driven mad by ergot (a fungus). Drawing on decades of experience doing science in the woods and fields, Fortey starts with the perfect 'fungus day' - eating ceps in Piedmont. He introduces brown rotters and the white, earthstars and death caps; fungal annuals and perennials, dung lovers and parasites, even fungi that move through the trees like mycelial monkeys. We learn that the giant puffball produces more spores than there are known stars in the universe and fetid stinkhorns begin looking like arrivals from the planet Tharg. He tells of the fungus that turns flies into zombies, the ones that clean up metallic waste the delicious subterranean fungi truffe de Perigord, the delight of gourmets.
Amongst these and many other 'close encounters' of a fungal kind, the book attempts to answer the questions: what are fungi? Why did their means of reproduction escape discovery for so long? What role do they play in the development of life?
The vast kingdom of fungi is more diverse and species rich than plants or animals. Their glorious profusion has the starring role in this magical, deeply informed book which takes us from familiar places into strange worlds.
ABOUT RICHARD FORTEY...
Richard Fortey is a celebrated scientist, writer and television presenter with a long career in palaeontology at the Natural History Museum in London. Richard has published numerous books including The Hidden Landscape, Life, Trilobite! and his highly-acclaimed memoir A Curious Boy. He was elected President of the Geological Society of London and was awarded the geological Society Lyell Medal for significant contribution to geology. For over four decades he has indulged his passion for the study of fungi.
A talented science communicator, and winner of the Royal Society’s Michael Faraday Prize, Richard has appeared in many natural history television programmes for the BBC. In 2010, he travelled with David Attenborough to the Atlas Mountains to find trilobite fossils for BBC Two’s First Life. In 1993, Richard’s book The Hidden Landscape: Journey into the Geological Past was named the Natural World Book of the Year.