There’s been a recent spike of interest in all things fungal. More people are eating mushrooms, more people are using them medicinally, and more people are baffled by trying to identify them. Mycologist and writer Lawrence Millman would rather gaze admiringly at a mushroom than pick it and sauté it. Or if he does pick it, a piece of its tissue will become a revelation under his microscope.

Millman discusses how he got interested in mushrooms through his travels in the Arctic and, likewise, from an epiphany in the mountains of North Carolina. He explains how mushrooms are essential to our planet’s health, and that without them, plants would be at best sickly versions of their former selves, and dead organisms would be lying around perpetually.

Millman’s book, Fungipedia: A Brief Compendium of Mushroom Lore (Princeton Press) is available for sale and signing.