Turkey Tail mushrooms are everywhere! Gia admits that mushrooms may be her favorite things in nature. Learn all about one of the most common and easy to find mushrooms.
Special thanks to Michael Kuo for use of his Turkey Tail photo.
Our sources for this episode include:
- Michael Kuo’s take on turkey tail / Trametes versicolor: The Turkey Tail (MushroomExpert.Com)
- Good explanation of medicinal properties / How to Make Turkey Tail Mushroom Powder
- Tom Volk’s take on turkey tail / Fungus of the Month for August 1997 (wisc.edu)
- Nicholas Money’s paper “Are Mushrooms Medicinal?” (2016 PubMed (nih.gov)
- Coriolus versicolor | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (mskcc.org)
Thanks for another great podcast! So much great information about Turkey Tails. I had no idea there was so much research being done on the medicinal uses – really interesting!
This was really fun and informative for me. Gia is a wonderful combination of knowledge and enthusiasm!
Bob
I really enjoyed our units on mycology when teaching biology at the high school level. The world of decomposition finishes the cyclic nature of the living materials on earth. Two ideas for future episodes on fungi: 1. bioluminescent species I encountered such a fungus while working as a camp counselor at a residential YMCA summer camp in the late 1960s. Of course it was way past dark on a camping trip when I woke up to the sight of a greenish-yellow figure standing up about 50 feet from my questioning, now wide awake eyes! Upon following my curiosity, I got up and walked over to it only to find a complex of a fallen tree with its roots standing up with these lines of dimly glowing fungal hyphae attached to those roots! The second idea is to look into slime molds. (Amoebozoans…cousins of fungi). Coming across these amazing, many times colorful slime molds in a woods is always a treat. In the classroom I would have students use the dormant sporangia stage placed on wet filter paper with oat grains to force the slime mold into its active stage. It would become amoeba-like engulfing the oat grain. Through a dissecting microscope these yellow plasmodia can be seen with flowing cytoplasm through the large unicellular body to digest the oat grain! Both of these topics would be fascinating to share with your audience!
Thanks for the suggestions! Gia is our expert in this area. I will talk to her and we will try to work both of these ideas into future podcasts.