Amanita

Wherever there is cryptology, there is espionage and there are deadly poisons . Several species of Amanita are to be found in the area. These are naturally present in the boreal forest and tundra, where the mycelia are in symbiosis with rich beds of moss, birches and spruces.

Aerobic exercise, adequate fluid intake, abstinence from alcohol, and a well-balanced diet of fresh foods are crucial to building up and maintaining the body's resistance and immunity to the toxins in these mushrooms which will inevitably be encountered by accident in minute doses out in the woods.

Death caps and destroying angels are, well, deadly. Fly agarics are poisonous, but claims that they are hallucinogenic are probably highly overrated. Deadly amanitas have a very faint, sickly sweet, earthy or musty odor that becomes very sharp and acrid, and causes a stomachache similar to cyanide poisoning. A walk in the woods hunting mushrooms should be a healthful, relatively safe activity. Observe, breathe fresh air, and also watch out for wildlife and big game but otherwise do not pick or eat or sniff poisonous mushrooms.

And these mushrooms all have their uses. The mycelia of any or all of them, growing in thick beds of moss on a healthy boreal forest floor, have long been used as fine soft toilet paper or sanitary or baby wipes in woodland emergencies, and taking care to handle them in a manner of handling filth, one should not be poisoned by them. Fly agarics are thought to kill flies and mosquitoes.

If there is a "Caesar's Mushroom," Shakespeare was British of course, but the characters in his play Romeo and Juliet were quite appropriately Roman, and Julius Caesar's famous words "Et tu, Brute!" tell us that this mushroom is named for its treason, not for its desirability as an edible. There are bell peppers with no heat, and salad bar mushrooms with no poison, but fungi do not always breed true to named species, and there is no way to tell the presence or absence of a mushroom gene that encodes deadly toxins merely by visual identification of species that happen to have been named in the pseudo-Latin Linnaeus system.

Death cap

Destroying angel

Fly agaric

Other mushrooms

There are certain Pagan and/or Satanic rituals masquerading as science here. Mainstream "scientists" typically abhor Christianity and creationism, and altogether deny the existence of God, although their atheism should be irrelevant to their work of theorizing and observing and reporting. Life goes on for a time without the acknowledgment of Deity, but something is missing in the faith and the trust that these scientists expect of us without having earned it.

A rogue mushroom native to Asia is ripping through North American forests, after escaping from cultivation. As it runs riot, mushroom enthusiasts are rescuing the native fungi in its path.

The razor blade of the newly unpacked surgical scalpel glints in the late Autumn light. I spray alcohol sanitiser on the work surface, rub my hands religiously, and try not to sneeze.

I am about to clone a mushroom – a pristine grey oyster, its smooth cap the colour of a cloud just about to burst.

This is not how I imagined my first time cloning something would be. I'm not in a sterile laboratory – I'm in a tent in a muddy field in Sussex in the UK with dozens of other campers, at the annual All Things Fungi Festival. Many are wearing furry mushroom-themed hats or jumpers. A few metres away a medicine woman chimes a gong as she leads a fungi-themed "sound bath" session .