A meeting of the Southampton Medical Society was held on October 6th 2021 at the Ampfield Golf Club in a ‘hybrid meeting’ with some members present at the talk and others following it on Zoom. The President was in the chair. The minutes of the last ordinary meeting were circulated beforehand and approved. The President introduced our speaker Dr Stuart Skeates, both a former GP and Past Vice President of the British Mycological Society. He spoke to the title Fungi: The Kingdom of Surprises. What are they? A mushroom [Norman] or a toadstool [Anglo Saxon - Paddock in Scots and Padder in Dutch]? They are the visible reproductive organs of funga. But hidden beneath the ground is a vast network of fungal mycelia. These grow from the tip and are 1 cell wide - rather like neurones. These cover large areas - the largest in the world covering several thousand acres. In the Linnaean classification they have their own Kingdom which may be the largest of all. Funga have a symbiotic relationship with plants and trees. The funga extract nutrients from the soil and deliver them to plants and trees by either forming a cuff around the roots, or invading them. In return the plants deliver sugars from photosynthesis. Thus a communication network is created between trees and plants using this network of fungal mycelia. It is postulated that it can be used as an advance warning system to prepare plants and trees for attacks by hostile insects etc.. Fossils of funga have been carbon dated to 635,000,000 years ago [sic]. Funga rot down dead wood and break it down which results in coal formation when the conditions are right. This ability to break down materials is used commercially to clear up oil spills, to detoxify contaminated land and uranium spills from nuclear reactors as funga are not harmed by radiation. They thrive in Chernobyl. Funga can also spread easily with certain crops causing serious problems such as potato blight, [causing the 1845 famine in Ireland], chocolate blight, [so endemic in S America that much chocolate is now produced in Africa], coffee, rubber, cereal and rice crops. Dutch Elm Disease and Ash Die Back are examples from this country. Funga are the origin of certain drugs such as Penicillin, Cephalosporins and Griseofulvin. Funga are also used to destroy the ergot of rye in dog food. They are involved in the production of chocolate, Marmite, Quorn, cheese, soy sauce, wine and stone washed jeans. Finally, residents near distilleries have complained about sooty black mould which is spreading over their houses. It already covers the distillery and nearby vegetation. The mould feeds on the alcohol vapour that escapes from the wooden barrels used for maturing spirits.

The President thanked Dr Skeates for a fascinating lecture. There being no other business the meeting was closed.