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| "Low Clouds" by Alaska artist Alicia Wolter-Hausser |
Today, our treasured home Alaska is "in the crosshairs" (their words, not mine). My mycological support network for today is a classic Alaskan. Like so many things in Alaska, this mushroom is rare everywhere else, but appears in abundance here. We call it Alaska Gold (Phaeolepiota aurea), but it is coveted enough worldwide to have been gifted a myriad of common names: Golden Bootleg, Golden cap, Golden false pholiota, Golden web cap (UK), Gyldenhat (Denmark), Koganetake (Japan), Goudhoed (Dutch), Pholiota Dorée (France), Glimmerschüppling (Germany), aksamitówka złota (Poland), etc.
Like yesterday's champion, Alaska Gold has anti-cancer/anti-tumor properties: polysaccharides obtained from a mycelial culture of P. aurea administered to mice inhibited the growth of certain cancers by 100%. Can you see a theme emerging here?
Golden beauties
like grainy lanterns among the grasses,
mysteriously processing
heavy metals
and creating deadly gasses.
Thoughtforms loom low
over the Last Frontier.
May you hear my petition;
and pause in your transmutations
to rearrange them
into a flaxen glow.
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