The ishness of things

#TT382; What does Animal Vegetable Mineral mean?

Nothing like a simple question to set one poking Google for answers. As someone generally animist in perception, the Linnaean divisions are already stretched, as I find my pet rock Horace to be wildly more animated than some humans, and I've had good conversations with many a tree...

If you've ever played the twenty questions game you'll know someone always starts the inquisition with "is it animal, vegetable or mineral" and in this case the response would be "no." Mushrooms are none of the above. As one reads further find it gets even more complicated.

Anyhow, dry though it's been there were one of two little (not actually tiny) mushrooms and fungi scattered around Westonbirt Arboretum today. The light was strong and autumnal and lit the ride down through to Westonbirt Gatehouse quite nicely, in the extra.