Taxonomy's 200-Year Mistake

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fungi used to be considered plants. Bad plants. Carl Linnaeus even referred to them as “the poorest peasants” of the vegetable class. This reputation stuck, and fungi were considered a nuisance in the Western world well into the 20th century. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian is trying to rewrite that narrative. Her new book, Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature catalogs fungi that sprout from the shells of beetles, morph with their sexual partners into one being and exhibit as many as 23,000 mating types. Patty believes that fungi’s ability to defy our cut and dry assumptions about the natural world is actually their superpower. All it takes is to first accept that they’re queer as heck. Featuring Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian. Produced by Marina Henke. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook. LINKS You can find Patty’s new book Forest Euphoria at your local bookstore or online. Local to Albany? Visit the fungi exhibit that Marina toured at the New York State Museum: Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of Mushrooms. Patty has had the chance to name several new species of fungi. In 2021 she published an article documenting those species, with some pretty great photos of laboulbeniales (those are the fungi that grow from arthropod shells). Check out C. L. Porter’s 1969 address to the Indiana Academy of Sciences where he critiques fellow mycologists for being “meek.” It’s brutal. One of Patty’s favorite films is Microcosmos, a 1996 French documentary that investigates the daily interactions of insects. It’s not direct mushroom content per se, but it is beautiful. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, this is Outside In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide.
0:05.7	I'm Nate Hedgy.
0:07.7	A few months ago, one of our producers, Marina Hanke, found herself on a field trip to the New York
0:13.0	State Museum in Albany.
0:14.6	Testing, testing, testing, one, two, testing, testing.
0:17.8	It's a building of sharp edges and gray concrete gives very strong Jetson's vibes.
0:23.9	But what Marina was there to see is about as far from concrete as you're going to get.
0:29.4	I mean, I feel like the best way to describe it is like a cabinet of curiosities of mushrooms right here.
0:34.3	I mean, these are the most mushrooms I've maybe seen in my life right now.
0:44.0	Yeah. of mushrooms right here. I mean, these are the most mushrooms I've maybe seen in my life right now. Mushrooms.
0:45.2	This is called fistio-line, a hepatica, which the common name is the beef steak mushroom.
0:50.0	It gets that name because when you see it in the forest, it really does look like this piece of meat.
0:55.2	And when you slice it and even exudes like a reddish liquid.
0:59.2	No.
0:59.6	And it's edible and it tastes incredible.
1:02.3	And so you can eat it.
1:02.9	You can eat it.
1:04.6	This is Patty Kachian, New York State Museum's curator of mycology.
1:09.0	That's the study of fungi.
1:12.8	She and Marina were standing in front of a big glass cabinet full of wax sculptures, like a Madame Tussaud's, but for mushrooms.
1:18.7	I mean, can you like describe, like, what is the texture of that cap? Yeah, so we would just,
1:23.3	in mycological terms, we would say that's like cerebriform. What is that?
	...

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