The Monologue of a Spore

Supported by M Art Foundation 11/2022

In the lush forest, branches and leaves sway in the wind, and birds and beasts rest among them. Most hidden of all are the mushrooms beneath the undergrowth — the earth‑colored matsutake conceal themselves under pine needles and are exceedingly hard to spot. And I, the smallest constituent of a mushroom — a spore — am as elusive as dust, even less visible. Few people know the mushroom in its entirety, let alone know of my existence. I am the seed tucked under the gills of a mushroom, the seed floating in the air. I appear only at the mushroom’s maturity peak — from emergence to maturity, a fruiting body typically needs seven days; 48 hours after maturation, it releases spores and then declines. When the cap unfurls like a stretch and exposes the gills, I can begin to travel on air. Each mushroom can eject billions of spores every day: some land in shallow soil, some hitch rides on insects, some reach the clouds… Spore dispersal looks like a haze, and the tiny spores ride uplift currents to high altitudes, becoming part of the cloud and rain. Because we can act as condensation nuclei, accelerating droplet formation and promoting rainfall — ESEM experiments show that the special mechanism of mushroom spore release uniquely influences water condensation after spores disperse in the atmosphere, indicating spores are compelling catalysts for raindrop formation and can contribute to precipitation. Riding the clouds, we can therefore descend far afield.

The true organism is the mycelium — the mycelial body. Hyphae are the structural units of most fungi; many hyphae aggregate to form the fungal nutritional body. The familiar mushroom is merely the fruiting body of the mycelium, and I — the spore — am the reproductive organ concealed in the fruiting body that gives rise to hyphae. Thus, our windborne journey is to reach new environments where we can grow into hyphae, where tiny spores develop into dense mycelial networks that intertwine with young tree roots to form mycorrhizae and secure fresh nutrients. When you part the leaf litter and see the pale, woolly networks under the soil, those are the mycelia I developed.

Though we are hard to detect — hidden in dust or buried underground — we are everywhere: beneath the ground, within trunks, and up in the air. We are invisible yet ubiquitous. Our mycelia interweave with plant root systems, forming intimate mycorrhizal networks in the soil. No plant can survive in natural environments without fungi: more than two‑thirds of terrestrial plants obtain nutrients through symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. In this symbiosis, we provide plants with water and mineral elements such as nitrogen and phosphorus; plants supply carbohydrates in return. Fossil records and molecular evolution data indicate that mycorrhizal associations formed between fungi and early land plants as far back as 340–450 million years ago.

Plants connect by sharing mycorrhizae (mycorrhizal linkage); multiple host plants linked this way create mycorrhizal networks — a shared web that connects trees, sometimes called the “wood wide web.” The mycelial web binds diverse surrounding plants into a single organism — this is our underground form.

Our metabolic ingenuity enables fungi to establish diverse relationships; through hyphae or fruiting bodies, wherever plants exist, they rely on us for nutrition and defense — animals do as well. Our fruiting bodies provide additional and varied food sources for forest life. In ecosystems with well‑developed mycorrhizae, the diversity and abundance of fungivores increase, which in turn raises regional biodiversity to some extent.

Matsutake, a fungal fruiting body symbiotic with pine (the name dates back in Chinese materia medica because it appears beneath pines and the primordia resemble deer antlers), is beloved by many forest creatures. Its rich, unique aroma attracts insects to nibble; even mating bees hover around matsutake to take some scent with them. Humans are equally obsessed: people comb the pinewoods, trying to find our bodies beneath the needles. But we are so desirable that one major challenge for pickers is beating the insects to us.

Many have tried to cultivate matsutake, but unfortunately, we are unlike wood‑decay fungi: we cannot live solely on dead wood. We require symbiotic partners — whether other fungi, plants, or insects — and must establish nutrient‑exchange relationships; solitary survival is difficult. We prefer environments of life and death succession, and only grow in pines older than about thirty years. We are fragile: if soil “runs a fever” for three consecutive days — temperatures above 23 °C — we are damaged. Forest environments are complex, and to survive, we must adjust to changing conditions, so across latitudes and even different sides of a mountain, we show very different patterns. Many factors affect our growth. Thus, searching only under broadleaf trees is futile: you must find the tree species with which we associate. Only when rainfall, temperature, local climate, and other key variables align in very specific ways will mushrooms appear. Predicting when certain fungi will emerge is like astrology: when the celestial bodies align, enchantment happens.

Because of these constraints, people abandon attempts at domestication and become matsutake hunters. They search the forest floor inch by inch, using ancestral experience to judge our locations and habits. Different mushrooms have distinct scents; to recognize a mushroom, one must train every sense, especially smell, to gather the cues necessary to identify species.

Village lore also circulates among us. See that young Tibetan man who enters the mountain: he stoops searching and warns his noisy companions, “Quiet — if you make noise the matsutake will hide.” Because if people are not attentive and careful, we slip from human sight. Over there, a woman has been poking the ground with a stick for a long time without finding us. She sighs, “Matsutake can only be encountered by chance.” Yet on the verge of giving up she glances down and sees a small primordium at her feet; everyone laughs in surprise. She quickly pries the little mushroom up and tells curious companions, “Don’t keep staring at a matsutake — if you frighten it, it won’t grow back next year…”

Villagers also speak of wild giants deep in the forest. Dorjee, owner of a Tibetan restaurant, says: “He’s several meters tall, his footprints as long as a small car. They say he’s a god concealed in the woods; villagers only enter that part of the forest when necessary.” Such legends and the towering, ancient mountains sacralize the landscape and discourage casual intrusion. People project simple imaginings of “mountain spirits” onto the unknown as a form of longing and an outlet for dissatisfaction with reality. From sacred Buddhist peaks to Western paradises, from Daoist hidden realms to literary utopias and Greece’s Olympus — and Shangri‑La in Lost Horizon at the foot of the Himalaya — humans naturally yearn for pure lives and secret sanctuaries; this yearning reflects modern inner emptiness as well.

Mycelia spread through the forest and spores diffuse into every corner; each breath people take contains some of us — perhaps I am larger than the legends’ giant. In deep mountains, matsutake embody the mystery of the woods: their scent, their folklore of rebirth after cataclysm, and the anti‑industrial mode of foraging cloak them in mystique. That mystique becomes a marketable aura. As Diqing was rebranded “Shangri‑La,” symbols of simple life and pristine land are monetized.

Harvesting matsutake is like taking fragments of the mountain spirit; through efficient logistics networks, distant urban consumers can taste a piece of that secret place. Look at the fast‑commerce ads: “Delivered to your table within 48 hours, as fresh as if still growing in the woods.” For small traders, speedy logistics are crucial. Matsutake are time‑sensitive: collectors hand in the first morning harvest, and traders race to sort, box and ship before the first courier departs at 11 a.m.

In urban clubs, we become props to set a mood: alongside gentle music, landscape screens, and seated guests, we help conjure an imagined “transcendent forest,” as if we are mediators to a utopia. In these ritualized settings, we are required to conform — cut into “perfect” shapes, arranged like molded components. Slices for aesthetic presentation must come from unopened caps, when the cap is still tightly folded and the stipe width is uniform. High‑grade matsutake have firm, elastic stems; a thin blade glides and leaves no ragged flesh, preserving the original silhouette. Cooking methods vary: those who seek the forest flavor lightly roast to remove moisture and concentrate aroma; some eat raw, preferring the smallest specimens — “the small ones are the best,” sellers say: “Once you eat a small matsutake, you won’t want a big one.”

This preference drives grading systems. Mushrooms dug from different slopes are sorted by size. Open‑cap specimens vary widely and are priced low; unopened caps are graded into ranges (e.g., 7–9 cm, 9–12 cm as top grades; 5–7 cm and under 5 cm lower). Internationally, matsutake may be divided into 16 grades by size and cap condition; some exporters expand standards to 48 tiers for certain Japanese markets. In grading, the forest’s randomness is measured and monetized, feeding pricing mechanisms. Once graded, the mountain spirit becomes a marketable product dispatched to various clients.

Developed logistics have become our new travel routes. Before caps open, we are packed into gift boxes, no longer borne by air currents but by trucks and planes to unfamiliar destinations. We huddle within the gills; only when cut do some spores scatter into dishes, but then I cannot generate new mycelia nor intertwine with pine roots — only curious diners await. Though I cannot extend the mycorrhizal web, humans have woven a trade network around matsutake. Perhaps in trade the fruiting bodies become “spores,” and the mycorrhizal network is replaced by logistics, the hyphal‑root connection supplanted by human ties.

Since Japanese merchants sought matsutake in Shangri‑La, what was once an ordinary home food became a family treasure. Villagers changed roles: some became hunters, some middlemen connecting the village and market, some drivers on transport routes. Our mountain is protected by the village; only those close to the community earn trust and long‑term supply relationships. Purchases at the village are unsorted — no one can guarantee what will be found on the mountain each day; equivalent labor may yield very different harvests. Middlemen share the randomness with villagers by buying ungraded lots, while experienced dealers can still estimate bag quality by hand and offer an appropriate price.

Whether in the 1990s at ￥0.50 per kilo or today at ￥1,000/kg, we have become scattered “treasures” sustaining village incomes. During the season, villagers head to the mountain at dawn, trampling the ground, brushing away the pine litter until the thick soil becomes gravel. Our growth may appear irregular, but under a well‑developed mycelial host stump, fruiting bodies often appear in clusters because nutrient flow is sufficient. Villagers call a rich stand a “shirow” or “mushroom nest” — a reliable cache. Finding such a nest is like discovering a family vault: one can spend less time and harvest more. Nests are guarded secrets; some will detour to other peaks before reaching the destination to throw off companions. Fathers treat discovered nests as heirlooms to pass to children; mutual sharing of nest locations and species identification builds interpersonal trust.

Although villagers know the mountain well, no household owns it, which fuels intense competition. Harvesting is so dense that locals pick every matsutake they encounter, no matter how small — “even the smallest mushroom is meat.” Villagers say, “Even if he doesn’t pick it, someone coming later will.” Indeed, blanket searching leaves us nowhere to hide. At dawn, tiny primordia just peeking from the soil are dug up before they feel the dew; some are removed before reaching market size — matsutake are listed as a national second‑class protected wild plant, and selling mushrooms under 5 cm is prohibited.

Under such intense collection pressure, Yunnan matsutake yields have declined since 1997 at roughly 5% per year; this year’s sharp drop in quantity and quality owes not only to overharvesting depleting spore supply — nests need spores to spawn new mycelia and secure nutrients. Climate variability collides with the uncertainty of matsutake phenology, and the possible disappearance of a delicacy reminds humans that climate change’s bitter fruit has reached our palates.

Lei Ge, who trades in Shangri‑La’s matsutake, works only during the season; four months of labor support his family and many others involved. His shop used to be bustling with drivers, loose‑lot buyers, and restaurant owners, and baskets full of mushrooms. “In past seasons, we could collect so much that stock didn’t matter; it was shipped out the same night and by the next day another round began.” This year is different: his stall moved from the trade hall’s second floor to a small roadside shop with only two baskets of stock. “Good goods are scarce; volumes are low but prices high. Goods that used to sell for ￥400–500/kg now fetch over ￥1,000. With such high procurement costs, profit is hard. This year’s income is at most a third of previous years.” Drivers reminisced about past prosperity: “Matsutake came in piles; every transport was full. We loaded without even looking.” Previously, the trade hall drew people from many walks — forming a transient, interdependent network crossing dialects, climates, and cultural geographies. This season, the market is less than half its former size, and Lei’s family moved to a smaller shop.

For tourists, bright summer weather is ideal; for the forest, days or weeks without rain are disastrous. Scorching sun dries the ground, lakes recede, and trees turn yellow and die. Mushroom nests lie empty; sticks rake up dust where soil was once moist. The annual meeting between people and fungi failed in many places. Everyone waits for rain; consumers watch exaggerated prices and hope for higher yields. Matsutake production manifests in price curves — but sadly, waiting only drives prices up.

When autumn rains arrive in September, people eagerly anticipate the matsutake revival. But belated rainfall does not immediately awaken us: primordia under pine needles remain dormant. Our growth needs not only rain but also sufficiently warm temperatures and other accompanying factors; only when all conditions are favorable can we flourish. September rain came too late — missing the season means missing the peak, even if rain falls a day late.

Experienced trader Lei judged early in July that this year would be “a hard one”: “Matsutake need heavy rain followed by sun, but this summer was only heat; when September rains came, temperatures fell — we missed the best growth period.” Scarcity drove market prices up. “Prices are so high I dare not collect much,” Lei said, “the last time prices were this high was 1993, when matsutake were also scarce.” 1993 was a year of marked global climate anomalies — storms and floods across many regions — associated with El Niño dynamics and atmospheric circulation patterns.

By contrast, in June 2022, the planet recorded some of the hottest temperatures since records began in the 1850s. ERA5 data from Copernicus/ECMWF show June 2022 land temperatures about 1.8 °C above pre‑industrial (1850–1899) baselines, with most warming occurring in recent decades; June land temperatures have risen over 1.5 °C since the early 1980s. China experienced extreme heat in July, with Shanghai reaching over 40 °C and rare red warnings issued. Under such heat-baking conditions, matsutake struggle to reach mature peaks even without hunters’ disturbance.

Finally, with autumn rains, the matsutake hiding from hunters slowly open their caps, and I again have the chance to travel on the wind. With gentle breezes, spores fall from gills in groups like an autumnal spore rain. Although summer heat caused both matsutake spore rain and forest rain to be scarce, some survivors still caught the tail of the growing season.

Light, intermittent forest rain mingles with faint matsutake rain; those sheltered indoors do not notice the “droplets” under our caps. But will next year’s matsutake rain not dry up? Will Spore journeys resume? Or will we only hear the imagined sound of rain in our hearts? We must untangle the factors interwoven in the mycelial network to understand precisely where the problem lies.

Xiaoye, “Matsutake — Gold Buried Under Pines,” Environment & Life, 2016.

Hassett, Fischer & Money, “Mushrooms as Rainmakers: How Spores Act as Nuclei for Raindrops,” 2015.

He Yunchun, Mycology, China Forestry Publishing House, 2008.

T. Tominaga, Life History and Cultivation Methods of Matsutake, translated by Tan Wei, Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 1992.

Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, 2021.

Gu Feng, “Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi conducting the hyphosphere bacterial orchestra,” Trends in Plant Science, 2021.

Feng & Yang, “Extraradical mycorrhizal symbiosis: fungal diversity and molecular mechanisms,” Science China: Life Sciences, 2019.

Liang Yu et al., “Role of mycorrhizal fungi in ecosystems,” Plant Ecology Journal, 2002.

Long Lit Woon (translator), “Walking the Forest: On Mushrooms and Grief,” Commercial Press, 2022.

Written by Long Pan