cold storage

THE PROLOGUE:
The world's largest single living organism is Armillaria solidipes, betterknown as the honey fungus. It's about eight thousand years old and covers3.7 square miles of the Blue Mountains in Oregon. Over eight millennia ithas spread through a weblike network of lines underground, sproutingfruiting bodies above the earth that look like mushrooms. The honey fungusis relatively benign, unless you're an herbaceous tree, bush, or plant. If youare, it's genocidal. The fungus kills by gradual takeover of the root systemand moves up the plant, eventually choking off all water and nutrients.Armillaria solidipes spreads across the landscape at a rate of one tothree feet per year and can take thirty to fifty years to kill an average-sizedtree. If it could move significantly faster, 90 percent of all botanic growthon Earth would die, the atmosphere would turn to poison gas, and humanand animal life would end. But it is a slow-moving fungus.Other fungi are faster.Much f