Alison Pouliot has a way with words-those who have been to her work shops or forays into the forests have been held spellbound with the descriptions, stories, anecdotes and images she lavishes on her audiences. The science is made simple and the connections seem obvious once you’ve experienced an hour delving into the world of fungi with Alison.
In Funga Obscura Alison blends narrative with pictures-a breathtaking series of fungus photography from Australia as well as from the rest of the world. At the Launch Alison explained that this book “presented fungi as a visual journey, shining a light to guide us through the cryptic kingdom of enigmatic organisms”.
Hooked from an early age Alison told us of her love of forests-especially the huge variety of organisms and the age of our “messy” forests. By comparison, just about every tree in Europe for instance was less than 60-80 years old. From forests she touched on fungi as the ultimate recyclers-from vegetation to the increasing problem of waste created by our consumerist society. Yes, much of our rubbish is biodegradable, however our output is so great it is hard for the world of fungi to cope with it all.
The photos in this book are stunning-certainly it makes you aware of the immense variety in the Kingdom of Fungi. In some of the photos you can imagine Alison creeping through the forest for the perfect mix of aspect, light and subject. (The “quiet hunt in the forests”). There are graphic pictures of “Dead Land”,(Alder Lake , Washington) where the landscape is bereft of any vegetation and the country is needing a kickstart, (Fungi, supreme colonisers), to get it going again, or the very opposite: wonderful atmospheric photos of Hobbit Country, (Rainforest, Portugal). You could imagine this land teeming with fungi.
We were fortunate to have Alison as a presenter at our Strathbogie Ranges Conservation “Festival of Fungi”, and it was an honour to launch her latest book at Euroa. The enthusiastic audience at the launch could have stayed for much longer, chatting with Alison and browsing her books. Hopefully there will be another book in the pipeline before too long.
Justus Hagen. July 2025
