Starting the "Bush Stove" (Artist's Conk)

In general, the amount of effort required to produce fire by utilizing shelf fungi as hearthboards and tinder is less than that expended using wood. I suspect this is the case because shelf fungi can dry out more quickly than wood, since the pore layer(from which the mushroom’s spores fall from) provides a conduit for the quick evaporation of moisture. One might also consider the diet that certain members of this mushroom family enjoys. As shelf fungi infect the trunk of a tree, it either digests cellulose (the substance that plant cell walls are made out of), leaving a brown rot, or cellulose and lignin (the glue that holds plant cell walls together), creating a white rot. I’ve had more success doing bow drill and hand drill on species that digest cellulose and lignin to produce a white rot (e.g. red-belted conk). Cellulose is comprised of glucose molecules linked primarily by glycosidic bonds. When metabolized, it decomposes into fatty acids, which are said to be volatile.

The hand drill (see photo) is structurally similar to the bow drill, but the bow and hand-hold are replaced by your strength. Bearing down on a longer, thinner spindle requires more stamina and power in order to achieve a coal in this manner. However, the intrinsic mystical simplicity of “rubbing two sticks together” and creating fire, without the technological evolution of the bow, strongly endears me to this method of friction fire. To date, I’ve only used the artist’s conk as a hearthboard successfully with hand drill. How amazing it would be to drill an ember on a shelf fungus while it remained attached to the host tree!

Boiling Water On the Bush Stove