Tall Trees Talk

This is the time of year on the North Coast when the rains fall and the mushrooms pop up.  We have the perfect climate for mushrooms.  They grow all year long, but when we get early fall rains and mild temperatures, they seem to explode everywhere on the forest floor.

Personally, I am not an avid mushroom eater.  What I do love to do, is to walk the Redwood and Spruce forest in Redwood National and State Parks and try to identify the hundreds of different types of mushrooms or fungus.

Let’s start with the question “What is a fungus?”

According to the Journal Of Wild Mushrooming:

“A fungus is an organism whose body consists of a mass of root-like threads, each only one cell thick. When the fungus feels that it’s grown enough and needs to reproduce, it sends up a mushroom, which functions for the fungus the way a fruit does for a plant. If a mushroom is shaped the way you’re used to, the underside of the cap is covered with radiating blade-like structures called gills. On these gills, the mushroom produces millions of spores. These are essentially single-celled seeds.  These spores are microscopic, so small that they blow away on the wind. Eventually (hopefully), they land on a suitable substrate, to grow into another fungus.

Fungal fruits come in all sizes and shapes, not just the medium-sized “mushroom” body-type that you know and love. And just as the fruits of plants include things that we don’t usually think of as fruits, like the winged fruits of maple and beech trees, fungal fruits include things that look nothing like “normal” mushrooms. In fact, we usually refer to fungal fruits as “fruiting bodies”, so as not to get them mixed up with those sweet things that grow on plants. But when a mushroom is up, we often say that the fungus is fruiting, just like one would for a plant. “

The essential way to identify mushrooms is to have a good field guide with lots of pictures. There are several good reference books out; I think the best one is by David Arora.

Mushrooms Demystified, 2nd ed., by David Arora, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, 1986, 959 pages, $39.95 paper. ISBN 0-89815-169-4.

I also carry a small digital camera to take pictures of the ones I cannot identify.  I then e-mail them to my ‘master mushroomer’ friend and she sends back more information or resources to help identify it.

If you hope to eat what you collect, the best way of staying out of the emergency room - - or the morgue - - is to collect with an experienced mushroom hunter, and use a reliable field guide. The best way to find experienced local mushroomers is to get in touch with your local mushroom club(s). Here locally, ours is the Humboldt Bay Mycological Society. Also, it is illegal to pick mushrooms in Redwood National and State Parks.

Collecting mushrooms is allowed in many recreation areas managed by BLM, but the rules, restrictions, and permit requirements vary depending on the area. Contact the appropriate field office for specific info.

It’s never okay to pick mushrooms on private land without permission—always ask first.

According to the Journal Of Wild Mushrooming here are some tips on collecting mushrooms

Dos and Don’ts

Don’t put mushrooms into plastic bags. Plastic bags condense moisture inside them and this will rot your mushrooms very quickly. To prevent decay, carry your mushrooms in individual paper or wax paper sandwich bags, loose in a basket, or in twists or newspaper, wax paper, or aluminum foil. On a sweltering day, mushrooms will survive better in a cooler.

Don’t get lost.

Do tale along a whistle and a compass to use when you get lost.  Some people also use the whistle as a mushroom call…

Do Join a mushroom club and take advantage of the willingness of more experienced mushroomers to share advice and information.  Don’t ask successful mushroomers to pinpoint where they found their prized mushrooms.

Do ask successful mushroomers about the habitat and elevation where they found their prized mushrooms.

Don’t ever serve mushrooms raw- -some people will have allergic reactions.  For example, raw morels will send many people to the emergancy room.  The common button mushroom seems to be the exception, but why take chances?

Don’t worry about how you pronounce the scientific names of the mushrooms.  Those names are Latin, and they are pronounced differently by:

1. American Mycologists

2. British Mycologists

3. Other European Mycologists

Your way (#4?) is bound to be close to 1, 2 or 3.

Advice for You

When Mushroom the Journal asked experienced mushroomers what advice they would give the beginning mushroom hunter, the top five items were:

1. Buy and use good field guides.

2. Join a mushroom club.

3. Take a mushroom identification course.

4. Go out hunting with an experienced mushroomer.

5. Keep a good journal in which you take good notes on what you find.

An experienced mushroomer also recommended:

Look for specific edible mushrooms. When you go berrying, you collect blueberries or blackberries. You don’t pick every berry in sight, mix them in a bag, and then expect some ‘expert’ to tell you which are edible.
Walt Sturgeon

So remember “Have Fungi, but Be Careful”