This year we were joined by our three Nepalese friends, Bikram, Ganandra and Ramari, who told us some fascinating stories about their homeland, including about the yarsagumba, a combination caterpillar-fungus known as the "Himalayan Viagra," said to cure sciatica and other ailments.
As it says at Weird and Funny World:
"Just earlier to the rainy season, spores of cordyceps fungus infect these Himalayan caterpillars that live on moist grass and hollow soil. After the fungus buries itself in the caterpillar’s body, it works its way out through the insect’s head. The parasite gets the energy from the caterpillar. The fungus parasite gets so much into the body of the caterpillars’ that it drains all the energy from the insect and ultimately it dies."
Back to Thanksgiving. Cora and Zena played classical music and Russian folk songs (at least I think they were) on the organ Brian and company found for free on Craigslist.
We visited my sister Maureen on Saturday.
Evangeline, the Queen of Make Believe (as it says in the Los Lobos song).
Megan and Alina.
My brother Billy and wife Lena.
It's actually pretty common for fungi to attack insects and some are used in the biological control of pests. Beauvaria makes some especially dramatic examples of insects engulfed (google-image "beauvaria" for example)...not surprising and maybe useful (but not necessarily so) that there could be potent attack and defense chemicals involved that could be incidentally medicinal for us...
ReplyDeleteI am happy that you had a nice Thanksgiving holiday, Mary!
ReplyDeleteWoah. All this fungus business is reminding me of a couple of old X-files episodes about killer fungi. Spooky. Your Thanksgiving table with friends and family looks lovely, and the baby is gorgeous. Evangeline is such an evocative name — love it.
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