The Society of Reflective Personalities - Funginite
The Opportunist
Personality:
Funginite never wastes a good opening.
A weakened wall. An unattended corner. A structure already beginning to fail. While everyone else is still discussing what happened, she has noticed the gap, slipped through it, and made herself comfortable.
She is patient. Funginite has no interest in forcing a door that is firmly shut. She waits. Watches. Tests the hinges. There is always another route, another crack, another neglected passage. And when conditions finally suit her, she moves quickly.
“Was anyone using this?”
By then, the chair has been relocated, the lamp is plugged in, and she somehow has a key.
Resinite finds her deeply irritating. She spends her life healing, only to discover Funginite examining the one place nobody thought to protect. Collotelinite insists there should be procedures for this sort of thing. Funginite just nods with an unapologetic smile on her face.
Her choice of neighbourhood is just as flexible. She can turn up among almost anyone in the Society, occasionally gathering in places with Collodetrinite, Secretinite or Resinite. Around root-derived tissues, she may preserve traces of much older associations.
Fusinite once asked whether she ever gets tired of turning up where she is not expected.
Funginite looked genuinely puzzled.
“Expected by whom?”
Secretinite remains particularly sensitive about their history. For years, people had an unfortunate habit of confusing the two (many still do). Funginite considers this entirely someone else’s problem.
Macrinite, The Archivist, watches her with particular interest. He has learned that after Funginite has been somewhere, the story is rarely simple. Structures change. Boundaries blur. Materials are reworked. He does not ask too many questions. He simply opens another file and adds to the story.
Funginite has no grand plan for the Society. She does not need one. She works with what is available, adapts to what changes, and recognises possibility long before anyone else sees it.
Because Funginite knows one thing better than most:
There is always an opening.
Scientist’s Note:
Funginite is an inertinite-group maceral comprising preserved fungal remains, including fungal spores, sclerotia, hyphae, mycelia and other fungal tissues. Its morphology is highly variable, ranging from rounded or oval unicellular and multicellular bodies to tubular hyphae and more complex fungal tissues. In reflected light, funginite is generally pale grey to white and commonly has a higher reflectance than associated vitrinite, although this difference decreases with increasing coal rank. It is normally non-fluorescent, except where fungal structures have been impregnated by bituminous material.
Fungal remains are rich in resistant constituents such as chitin, while melanin is considered an important contributor to their dark colour in transmitted light, relatively high reflectance in reflected light and resistance to degradation. Funginite can occur from Devonian to recent sediments, generally in small amounts, and may be associated with a wide range of other macerals.
O’Keefe et al. place funginite within a broader view of microbial transformation in peat, emphasising fungi as active agents in the decomposition and alteration of plant material. Because fungal tissues may themselves be degraded, recycled or poorly preserved, the observed abundance of funginite in coal does not necessarily record the full extent of fungal activity in the original peat-forming environment.
Scientist’s note based on:
ICCP, 2001. The new inertinite classification (ICCP System 1994). Fuel 80, 459-471.
O'Keefe, J.M.K., Bechtel, A., Christianis, K., Dai, S., DiMichele, W.A., Eble, C.F., Esterle, J.S., Mastalerz, M., Raymond, A.L., Valentim, B.V., Wagner, N.J., Ward, C.R., Hower, J.C., 2013. On the fundamental difference between coal rank and coal type. International Journal of Coal geology 118, 58–87.
Lyons, P.C., 2000. Funginite and secretinite - two new macerals of the inertinite maceral group. International Journal of Coal Geology 44, 95-98.
Hower, J.C., O'Keefe, J.M.K., Eble, C.F., Raymond, A., Valentim, B., Volk, T.J., Richardson, A.R., Satterwhite, A.B., Hatch, R.S., Stucker, J.D., Watt, M.A., 2011. Notes on the origin of inertinite macerals in coal: evidence for fungal and arthropod transformations of degraded macerals. International Journal of Coal Geology 86, 231–240.
Hower, J.C., O'Keefe, J.M.K., Watt, M.A., Pratt, T.J., Eble, C.F., Stucker, J.D., Richardson, A.R., Kostova, I.J., 2009. Notes on the origin of inertinite macerals in coals: observations on the importance of fungi in the origin of macrinite. International Journal of Coal Geology 80, 135–143.
Hower, J.C., O’Keefe, J.M.K., Volk, T.J., Watt, M.A., 2010. Funginite-resinite associations in coal. International Journal of Coal Geology 83, 64-72.
