POETRY

God as American Caterpillar Fungus

By Susan O’Dell Underwood     Reprinted with permission from University of Georgia Press
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Dumb and blind, you resurrect into sunlight
out of the face of the host. Your rooted emanation
worm-shaped as the humble one you sprang from.
Isn’t mimicry akin to love? Even a parasite deserves
glory, crawling your grubby scrawl of breathless
urge from dung-wet clay to elongation. Out of the big
darkness, your ochre tongue licks toward dappled shadow.
In some places the poor will rout you out, make tea
from your body, transmogrifying fungal musk and tang
into virility. Men will believe the strength in partaking
of your protrusion, erect and vivid. Commune
with the ground upon which we all kneel.
Search for the nubbin born from the wheeled spore,
life wicking up from death’s mute and mutable door.

AMERICAN CATERPILLAR FUNGI

Cordyceps spp.

Habitat and Range: Deciduous and pine-mixed forests. Only occasionally encountered yet widely scattered through Southern Appalachia.

Description and Notes: There are as many as fifty species of caterpillar fungi in eastern North America. Knowledge of any one Southern Appalachian species is scarce, thus the information here refers to the genus in the region, not any one species. The aboveground fruiting body of the Appalachian Cordyceps is also called “club fungus” and “tongue fungus” because it looks like a narrow orange tongue running along the forest floor. But what feeds the species is below ground: mycelia that have encircled a subterranean moth larva or pupa and have parasitized the caterpillar, draining its essential nutrients. So, where you see American caterpillar fungus above ground, you can know an invertebrate it has killed or is gradually killing lies beneath. Related species in the Southern Appalachians parasitize beetle larvae and subterranean fungi. The Chinese caterpillar fungus, found in the high elevations of western China and Tibet, is collected every spring by the thousands because it is thought to be a heal-all and aphrodisiac. And it has become such a status symbol that dealers now sell the American species on the internet. The seemingly low-profile (maybe even distasteful-sounding) fungus is worth more than its weight in gold on the international market. These fungi are thought to be rare in Southern Appalachia but may be simply overlooked in the species-rich environment.


A Literary Field Guide to
​Southern Appalachia

University of Georgia Press