Impression Fungus

What it looks like, and what it does

A field of chalk-white, soft-shelved forms: a bench, a pram, a coat on a hook, a pair of boots, all in hollow replica, stitching and all. Stalks like cut glass. Low mist.

Slow. Fruits after rain, in autumn. Holds a replica for as long as the ground is undisturbed.

What is known

It grows on heaths, in empty lots and under demolished buildings. Where something stood for years, a shed, a swing, a chair, the fungus raises its copy down to the grain.

The copies are hollow and fragile. The largest field is in the grounds of a closed sanatorium, where each bath chair along the south wall has raised a pale figure sitting in it.

What it can do

• Grows exact hollow replicas of objects, and sometimes of seated figures, left in one place for years

Where it stops

• Collapses to dust when handled
• Cannot grow on ground that is turned each year

An encounter

Marsh counted fifty-one white shapes along the wall, each in the position of a bath chair. He stopped mowing near them. He says it is to avoid disturbing the fungus. Asked what else, he said he had been told the chairs were being kept.

Gideon Marsh, groundsman, Grounds of the closed Larch Hill sanatorium, The tenth year of mowing

What is established, and what is only said

• established: Replicas match their originals in dimension to within two millimetres in all measured cases.
• incomplete: Seven replicas of objects not recorded at the site have been traced to living owners elsewhere.
• rumor: That the figures in the chairs are those who sat there longest.

Still unresolved

Some replicas have been found of objects that never stood there. Their owners have been traced to other countries, and are alive.

Where it has been recorded

• Larch Hill (confirmed) — Recorded by Gideon Marsh, groundsman.

Stories about it

• The Impression Fungus of the Cathedral Close (Entity story, 4 min) — A gardener clearing the lawns of a cathedral close finds a pale fungus that grows in the exact shape of whatever has rested on the grass for years, and beneath the bench where the dean used to sit the shape is a man who has not yet been buried.
• Where You Set It Down (Entity story, 4 min) — On the grounds of a closed sanatorium the tenth autumn of mowing brings a field of pale hollow copies of everything that ever rested there, and one new copy of a thing that never stood there at all.

Connected entities

• Mother of Rooms — The fungus raises the shape of what was left; the house raises rooms for those who stayed. Both keep what was not finished.
• The Footfall — Both grow from the weight of what passed. One keeps what was left. The other keeps who walked.
• Orphan Lilies — Both grow from absence. One raises the shape of what was left. The other flowers for who was.