And there was Fungus Man, accompanied by the trickster Raven, key characters in the Haida people\u2019s creation story in the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are just two of the many examples that students encounter in Plants, People, and Fungi, an advanced course focused on humans\u2019 age-old relationships with flora and funga. New to Clark this spring, the class is taught by mycologist David Hibbett<\/a>, the Andrea B. and Peter D. Klein \u201964 Distinguished Professor of Biology, and ethnobotanist Morgan Ruelle<\/a>, associate professor in the Department of Sustainability and Social Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m having a tremendous amount of fun teaching the course,\u201d says Hibbett, who joined Clark in 1999 and is now a world-renowned expert on the evolutionary biology of mushroom-forming fungi. \u201cIt\u2019s plants and fungi. It\u2019s basic botany and mycology. And it\u2019s ethnobotany and ethnomycology. So it\u2019s very interdisciplinary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can look at the use of plants and fungi as food from biochemical, evolutionary, taxonomic perspectives or from cultural, social, economic perspectives. To develop a deeper understanding, we need multiple perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Ruelle brings expertise on how Indigenous and other place-based ecological knowledge systems can be combined with scientific research to develop sustainable solutions. Currently, he is working with scientists and farmers in Ethiopia to study how their longtime use of traditional grain mixtures could be expanded to adapt to climate change in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can approach the study of human-plant-fungal relations from many different disciplinary perspectives, and I think that David and I are demonstrating that in each class,\u201d says Ruelle, who met Hibbett after joining Clark in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can look at the use of plants and fungi as food from biochemical, evolutionary, taxonomic perspectives or from cultural, social, economic perspectives,\u201d he says. \u201cTo develop a deeper understanding, we need multiple perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of those perspectives have been provided by guest speakers like Thidi Tshiguvho, Ph.D. \u201908, executive director of Worcester Roots, a local nonprofit, who discussed \u201cthe use of plants and fungi in Indigenous medical systems, including linkages between spirituality, traditional healing, and more conventional medical practice,\u201d according to Ruelle. \u201cShe provided insights into how different worldviews shape people\u2019s understanding of what plants and fungi do when they heal us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recommended readings include best-selling books like Michael Pollan\u2019s \u201cBotany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World,\u201d Merlin Sheldrake\u2019s \u201cEntangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures,\u201d and Robin Wall Kimmerer\u2019s \u201cBraiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants,\u201d and M. Kat Anderson\u2019s \u201cTending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources,\u201d along with additional texts on ethnobotany and enthnobiology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hibbett dives into the biochemical properties of plants and fungi, and their scientific and evolutionary history. An ongoing theme in the course has been humans\u2019 \u201cgive and take\u201d with plants and fungi, Ruelle says. \u201cOn the other hand, our cultures and ways of knowing are really shaped by plants and how we use them for food, for health, for energy. There\u2019s this mutual benefit in all these relationships that emerges strongly as we go through the course.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, Indigenous knowledge of plants and fungi also has been exploited, according to Hibbett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTaxonomy is inextricably connected to the history of colonization because so much of what we know about plants, fungi, and animals outside of North America and Western Europe really blossomed during the 19th century,\u201d he explains, \u201cwhen you had naturalists going around the world collecting the riches of the planet and bringing them back to museums and botanical gardens and zoos in Europe, principally, and then later in North America.\u201d And that circles back to \u00d6tzi and his mushrooms. Why was this neolithic man carrying two different fungi?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fruiting bodies of Fomes fomentarius<\/em> are as hard as wood, but they can be pulled apart and stretched to make a felt-like material, called amadou<\/em>, for hats and clothing. The fungus smolders for a long time after being lit on fire; hence the common name tinder conk. \u00d6tzi carried flints along with his pieces of Fomes fomentarius<\/em>, suggesting that he used the mushroom to start fires, according to Hibbett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is less clear why \u00d6tzi carried the birch polypore, he adds, but its use might have been medicinal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe do not know for certain what \u00d6tzi was using the fungus for,\u201d Hibbett says. \u201cMaybe he was using it as medicine. There is some evidence that extracts from this fungus might have antimicrobial properties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, the mushroom is widely marketed for medicinal purposes. \u201cIt\u2019s held up as an example of this ancient wisdom,\u201d Hibbett says, \u201cbut, in my view, that is tremendously exploitive. The people selling medicinal mushrooms make big health claims, but the science is not there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/raven-fungus-298x300.png\")
Drawing from a carving by Charles Edenshaw in the late 1800s depicting the Haida myth of the origin of women. Credit: Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n
![\"Farmer](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Farmer-and-researcher-Ethiopia-credit-Alex-McAlvay.jpg\")
\u201cWe often describe it as co-evolutionary. It\u2019s not only that we domesticate plants, but Michael Pollan has written that the plants also domesticate us,\u201d he says. \u201cWe shape the plants genetically so that they better serve our needs, and sometimes they become dependent on us because we provide protection and promote their reproduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The class\u2019 final assignment includes researching, presenting, and writing about a topic of choice; the articles will be published on a publicly available blog site. Many of the students have been interested in the medical and health applications of plants and fungi, such as the use of Psilocybe cubensis,<\/em> or magic mushroom, for mental health and spiritual wellness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Tinder](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Tinder-conk-Fomes-fomentarius-1024x683.jpg\")
Study plants and mushrooms at Clark<\/h3>\n\n\n\n