Mushrooms

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In 1975 Roger Phillips began his life’s major work of photographing and publishing pictures of the World’s garden plants. Roger developed an encyclopedic collection of books to show the difference between plants as diverse as mosses, roses, and annuals using modern photographic techniques. In 1970 he met the book designer David Larkin, for whom he did numerous book covers. It was Larkin who signed him up to publish his Wild Flowers of Britain (1977) with Pan/Macmillan. He wrote and presented two six-part TV series on gardening (BBC & Channel 4). Famed for his ebullient personality and garish red glasses, he has become a well-recognised figure in the world of gardening. It is a trade system in which the mushrooms which do not have chlorophyll, and therefore cannot use sunlight to generate nutrients, receive sugars and other compounds that they need from the tree or plant. Roger t In 1975 Roger Phillips began his life’s major work of photographing and publishing pictures of the World’s garden plants. Using modern photographic techniques, Roger set out to develop an encyclopedic collection of books to show the difference between plants as diverse as mosses, roses and annuals. His first book Wild Flowers of Britain was a huge success, selling 400,000 copies in the first year. He has since written 20 additional volumes (often with his co-author Martyn Rix) selling over 4.5million copies worldwide.

In exchange, this makes it possible for trees and plants to live in poor soils, and in fact, it is the support of the truffle group of fungi that can be found on very poor, limey soils. Meanwhile, years of voluntary work in the communal garden in Eccleston Square, Pimlico, where he lived, led in 1980 to Phillips being asked to take on its management. Under his stewardship the garden, now part of the National Gardens Scheme, was transformed into a plantsman’s paradise, containing the National Collection of Ceanothus, in addition to some 200 different climbing roses and 120 different Camellias. Roger has written and presented two major six-part TV series on gardening (BBC & Channel 4). Famed for his ebullient personality and garish red glasses, he has become a well-recognised figure in the world of gardening. I suggest that, like the hunter-gatherers, Phillips must see a different countryside to the rest of us when he goes for a walk in the woods; so much to eat for a start … He presented two six-part television series, 1994's The Quest for the Rose for BBC Television and, in 1995, The 3,000 Mile Garden for PBS. [2] [3]

Messages

Mushrooms and Fungi are the neglected geniuses of the plant world, but they are completely essential to life, the rest of the natural world is dependent on them for their health and viability. Roger Phillips is one of the world’s leading mushroom specialists with over 40 years of expertise in studying fungi in the wild. Roger’s book, ‘Mushrooms’, first published in 2006, has been hugely successful, with more than 2 million copies sold worldwide in 7 European languages.

Phillips accepts their compliments modestly while polishing off his stew – a dish I feel I could eat every winter lunchtime and never tire of. There is some discussion of the origin of the chanterelles – Portugal at this time of year – and we then wander to the edge of the market to get a glass of wine and sit and talk about the mulchy beginnings of his first love.

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Phillips, Roger, and Jacqui Hurst. 1983. Wild food: [a unique photographic guide to finding, cooking and eating wild plants, mushrooms and seaweed]. London: Pan Books. They gain their supplies of sugars and other organic matter by breaking down the organic matter in dead wood and leaves, rather than direct from the plants as in symbiosis.