A Different Kind of Gold

Fungi, pineapples and a Georgian obsession

Flowerpot Parasol (Leucocoprinus birnbaumii) in a plant pot, Atherton Tablelands, Far North Queensland. © Bronwen Scott

I am losing the battle against the toadstools in my plant pots. Not that I’m putting up a big fight. It’s a lot of effort to check the pots, pull on gloves because who knows if those things are toxic, and pick out the cadmium yellow shapes as they push their way through the soil. There’s nothing much to be gained from plucking them from the pots. But there’s a lot to be gained from watching them as they seemingly appear from nothing.

Of course, they don’t appear from nothing.

Q: So where do these fungi come from?

A: They appear out of thin air.

The first scientific record of what is now known as Flowerpot Parasol or Plantpot Dapperling (Leucocoprinus birnbaumii, Agaricaceae) is from 1785. Mycologist John Bolton described the species in his monograph An History of Fungusses, Growing about Halifax (1788), giving it the common name of Yellow Cottony Agaric.

The specimen here figured and described, grew amonst the bark in the pine-stove belonging to J. Caygill, Esq; at Sha, near Halifax, in August, 1785.

‘Sha’ is Shay House, home of John Caygill, one of the wealthiest merchants in Yorkshire. Caygill’s estate had already proved a fruitful source of fungi for Bolton. The ‘pine-stove’…