Mushrooms weave a network of ecology, medicine, food, and farming.

Encountering a mushroom in the forest provides a glimpse to a web that is largely unseen, underground. The mushroom is a fruiting body that emerges from a network of branching mycelium, a cellular structure interwoven in soil. This mass thrives by connecting to other organisms, especially the roots of trees and plants.

The Appalachian mountains boast a wide diversity of fungi, the collective term for mushroom and mycelium. Fungi reach their highest diversity in the southern part of the mountain range, according to the Highlander Biological Center, and scientists estimate that only 2,300 of as many as 20,000 species have been identified there.

Often, a mushroom patch represents a single organism. The subterranean net of mycelium can be large and long-lived, and “the mushrooms are just ephemeral, passing creatures,” says Dr. John Walker, a mycology professor at Appalachian State University. Walker studies fungi and their ecological relationship to roots.

Nearly 90 percent of plants form a special relationship to fungi in natural areas. One type of fungi, called mycorrhizae, attach to plant roots, providing food and water to the plants and receiving sugars in return. This symbiosis connects an ecosystem’s extensive root and mycelium networks, and it can actually affect plant ecology in a habitat, such as a rhododendron thicket.

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Spores released from leaves and twigs that were infected by a fungus last summer were carried to new leaves by splashing rain and wind this year. The result is that instead of presenting golden yellow colors, leaves in some aspen stands across the Southwest have brown spots and blotches.

U.S. Forest Service officials say visitors shouldn’t fret because the discoloring isn’t widespread enough to ruin leaf-peeping trips.

Arizona cities near national forests where aspen are found at higher elevations got above-normal precipitation this monsoon season, including Alpine and Heber, in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, and Flagstaff, surrounded by the Coconino National Forest.

Grayish areas in the center of the brown and blotchy spots indicate a presence of spores that could perpetuate the infection of aspen leaves if weather conditions are favorable for the disease.

Forest officials say they’re not expecting a die-off of aspen or significant loss in growth. However, successive annual epidemics of the disease can weaken or kill the root systems of aspens.

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