Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

“All plants depend on fungi,” Sheldrake explains. “They create the conditions for plants to grow either as symbiotic partners for roots or by decomposing material to make soil.” If fungi didn’t decompose wood, he explains, the world would be piled high with the bodies of animals and plants – a shocking thought that shows just how important fungi is, especially in the context of current conversations around rewilding and carbon capture. “We live and breath in the space that fungi leaves behind,” Sheldrake says. “When we talk about carbon capture in forests, all of that activity is made possible by fungi.”

In fact, it is thanks to fungi that our ancestors existed at all. Long before chilly neolithic explorers utilised certain fungi as fire-starters, fungi helped the very first plants crawl out of the primordial soup and help create the conditions for life on land around 500 million years ago.