Wednesday, October 22, 2014

SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS

There's a fungus among us. 
"Il y a un champignon parmi nous" simply doesn't have the same effect as its English translation. This glorious cluster of fringed, non-comestible mushrooms came of age on the grounds of France's largest equestrian center, the Haras de Jardy, on the outskirts of Versailles.


Vocabulary
un champignon:  a mushroom
à la périphérie de:  on the outskirts of


©2014 P.B. Lecron

2 comments:

  1. Are you sure those aren't edible? Admittedly fungal policy must insist on the safe and avoid the sorry, and admittedly it is hard to gauge scale from a photograph--but those look like inky caps to me.

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  2. You may well be right, but if so then they are also known as the Tippler's Bane; the coprine they contain can make you sick if you consume alcohol within as much as 5 days after eating them! I found a fascinating article about them that I recommend to you, which even cites a stanza from Shelley: http://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2008/07/01/the-dish-on-deliquescence-in-coprinus-species/

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