Forest Gold

With commercial pickers behind every tree, it's becoming harder and harder for a simple lover of wild mushrooms to harvest enough for "a bowl of soup and a fry-up" (as I like to term the amount I try to gather every fall). I set out before noon, and before I'd gone half a mile up a trail which has served me well the last several years, I was saying, "It's still too green. I'm too early by a week or two." At the same time, I was having an internal argument, with one voice saying, "Turn around, go home," and another saying, "When have I ever been one to turn around on a hike?" For me, that's almost unthinkable, but there I was, thinking it. "I'm getting old," I reproached myself, forcing my feet forward. Just then, I spotted a button-sized chanterelle, one of only half a dozen mushrooms of any type I'd seen so far. I scanned the surrounding area and...what?! There, on a mound of moss, were half a dozen decent-sized chanterelles which someone had cut and left behind! From their condition, I guessed they'd been cut yesterday, and having been out in the cold night air, they were still fresh and succulent. I dug my perhaps-bag out of my pack and loaded them in. Then I spotted a couple more a little deeper into the grove. All thoughts of turning around disappeared. I had enough already for either a bowl of soup or a fry-up, but not both. I collected a few more before reaching my turn-around point (where, incidentally, I did my daily tai chi routine on the bridge in the company of a woolly caterpillar of some sort). I arranged my collection on a mossy log for the photo, and then on the way back, added another 6-7 which I could then spot by being in a different angle of the light. As it turned out, I had a very large bowl of soup and a whopping fry-up from this, my first (and possibly only) mushroom hunt of the year. Stripping the forest of its gold is not my way.

Mushrooms A La LEGO

Last week, a mysterious package arrived on my doorstep. The return address gave me a clue, and I hoped to find a gift card inside, but when I opened the box, there was nothing to indicate who the benefactor might have been. I had a couple of ideas, one of which dominated the list of possibilities, but I wasn't 100% certain, and I didn't want to thank the wrong person based on an assumption. After posting an inquiry on Facebook, the person came forward in a private message and asked to remain anonymous. Respecting that, I promised to post a photo when I had finished building the kit.

Now, y'see, I love LEGOs. I haven't built many kits...two before this, to be precise (Doctor Who and a cute little ranger cabin)...but I have been impressed by the quality of LEGO products. I've never been missing a piece. In fact, there have always been a couple of "spare" pieces which I had to assure myself weren't remaining because I'd missed a step in the assembly. In this case, there was no question with respect to one spare part: I got two ladybugs instead of one! The instructions placed one on the stump. I put the other one on one of the Amanitas, red on red camouflage. This was certainly the most complex kit I've built (806 pieces), divided into seven bags which I carefully rationed out over the week. I only had to backtrack twice, and both of those were minor errors and easy to fix. LEGO provides the clearest instructions I have ever seen in a product. So, let me say "thank you" again to the Junuary Faerie who brightened my day/week with this delightful exercise in patience!

Crow's Mushroom Farm

Day 91: I'm having way too much fun with needle felting! I've done it before, but never three-dimensional figures. The Boleta (center) was my first, cobbled together with leftovers from a kit. The Morel (Helvella, actually, if you want to press the issue) was next, and it took me several days to make. Laying on the ridges was tedious, and in hindsight, there was a better way to do it, namely putting the light colour over the dark, and then adding dark spots to make the pits). The Amanita came together in about three hours this morning. Making the annulus (ring on the stem) was the hardest part. I made it separately and slid it down over the stipe before affixing it to the cap. The Helvella is 2.5" tall, the Boleta 1.5" and the Amanita 1.25". Next up? The Chanterelle Challenge!

Wedged In Wisteria

Day 43: Over the course of years, I have attempted to identify the crustose lichens growing on the trunk of my wisteria, but have not been able to nail them down. I rather doubt I'd have any better luck putting a name to the wisteria's newest accessory, an LBM of medium size which has sprouted in several locations about a foot and a half up from ground level. Since 'shrooms are decomposers, I'm inclined to believe that this means my wisteria isn't as healthy as it appears. Fungus generally appears on weakened wood. The wisteria has never been particularly happy with its northside location, producing only a few flower clusters over its thirty-year life span. It may be time to change up the front yard landscape.

Mushroom Hunting

 

Day 126: Armchair mushroom hunting can be almost as daunting as searching the woods, as I've recently discovered. With the pandemic limiting my access to any of the Asian markets I'd normally visit, I've been constrained to mail-order several of the ingredients for my best version of hot-and-sour soup, not the least of which were dried shiitakes and cloud-ears (Auricularia polytricha, aka "black fungus"). Yes, I could have bought fresh shiitakes at a grocery store, but the dried ones have a better flavour in the soup, and since I already needed to order cloud-ears, I bought a bag of shittakes big enough to last me the rest of my life. By the end of the week, I should have the last thing I need: glass noodles. I could do without or replace them with rice noodles, but I prefer the round Korean glass noodles made with sweet potato. It's been over two years since I had a bowl of hot-and-sour soup, so I'm going to make a potful big enough to last a month!

Faerie Garden

Day 31: Scientist that I am, I am also a photographer. Sometimes you just have to push the analytical aside and simply admire the beauty. I'd come up for air after being intent on a particular white crust fungus for ten minutes when this scene caught my eye. I immediately thought of a village set high in a mountainous region, Tibet or the Andes perhaps, where grey rock towers above rough-hewn shelters and vegetation clings close to the ground in the desperate and only manner which will allow it to withstand harsh winds and biting-cold temperatures. People do live in such places, you know, without the benefits of electricity and running water and the other amenities we Westerners take for granted, and they have done so for thousands of years. On this day, however, the faeries or sprites who call this community home were either indoors or away at their business of hunting and gathering, following the course of their lives untouched by the artificial constructs of modern civilization. Time means nothing in such a timeless place as this: only now, only this moment.

Egg Hunt

Day 6: While attempting to confirm that the big, floppy mushrooms which spring up in my yard so prodigiously at this time of year were indeed Suillus caerulescens, I made a tissue slice which captured perfectly an ovoid form which I believe to be an insect egg. It is far too large to be a spore, which of course was what I was hoping to find. Although considered edible, Suillus flesh is generally too full of bugs to be worth the bother, at least in my personal experience. "Wormy" is the word most frequently used to describe the condition, although in fact the little wiggly things are the larvae of minute flies. Were that not enough to put me off eating the bounty at my doorstep, S. caerulescens is one of the blue-staining species which cause abdominal distress in some people but not in others (sidebar: I'm the "one in a million" who always gets the undesirable side effects from prescribed medications, and am unwilling to chance it with mushrooms). S. caerulescens is typified by large, angular pores, a viscid cap, and a preference for growing in Doug-fir detritus. Other Suillus species may be associated with larch or various pines. And for those of you who are trying to get a handle on Latin, "caerulescens" is related to the English word "cerulean," a lovely shade. The root word is "caeruleum," i.e., "blue."

Frozen Fungus-Pops

Day 121: It was a cold and frosty morning when I hiked out to Big Bridge, and I was not expecting to find fungi in the heart of winter, but within a few yards of the trailhead, I noticed a grouping of small greyish-brown 'shrooms with white dots on their caps. I may not be an expert mycologist, but their size and shape immediately ruled out the possibility that they were Amanitas (the genus known for its white-spotted caps), so I bent over to take a closer look. The spots were ice: fine, hair-like tendrils of ice, sometimes clustered together, sometimes fanning apart so that individual threads could be seen (note the grouping on the left shoulder of the mushroom on the right). There is a phenomenon known as "hair-ice" which is caused by a fungus, but it occurs on wood, not on mushrooms. I was puzzled by the ice on these 'shrooms and spent much of my hike wondering why it had taken this form. I came up with a theory: that it occurred when guttation droplets froze. Some researchers believe that guttation occurs in fungi as a means to rid themselves of excess moisure. It was a stretch, but perhaps it is possible that a drop in temperature coincided with a guttation event. Unfortunately, I have no way to prove or disprove the hypothesis. I guess I'll just have to enjoy them for what they are: frozen fungus-pops (consumption not advised).

Mushroom Band

Day 84: The problem, you see, is that there are so many projects asking to be done, and only one of me to do them, and while I'm doing them, my brain is working on developing future projects, and...well, I'm sure you understand my dilemma. Tablet weaving has again captured my attention after a forty-year absence from the art, and after turning out a couple of 1-inch bands, an idea began rattling around in my brain about mushrooms, Mario mushrooms, those iconic red and white Amanitas found in faerie tales and forests. Now the internet is full of a lot of things, but tablet-woven mushrooms eluded my most diligent searches. Therefore, I would have to create my own. I borrowed sparingly from an existing draft which bore no resemblance to mushrooms in the slightest, and voila! I have mushrooms on mounds of moss with sky (blue, atypical for the Pacific Northwest) behind them. I plan to make a series of bands, all different, to stitch together as a bag or throw pillow top.

Red Buttons

Day 352: Mushrooms are popping up everywhere this autumn, demonstrating the most diverse collection of species I've seen in many years. My skills at identification of fungi are minimal at best. I know what I eat, and I know not to eat anything I don't know. I've gone as far as placing these cute little red buttons in Hygrophorus and have not ruled out H. speciosus, although they are not growing under larch (the species occurs under other evergreens), but even so, there are half a dozen species they could be, and without checking spores under the microscope, I can't be more definite. In any event, some Hygrophorus species are edible, but come with the caution that the common name "waxy-cap" is well-deserved. Apparently, even edible waxy-caps have all the gustatory appeal of gnawing on a block of paraffin.

Ramaria

Day 338: Would-be mushroom hunters be warned: while many wild fungi are edible, it often takes chemical testing or microscopic examination of the spores to differentiate one species from another. For example, I know that this is a Ramaria, i.e., one of the Coral fungi often found around Mount Rainier and elsewhere in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. However, it could be R. botrytis, R. subbotrytis, R. formosa or even an aged specimen of R. araiospora, now faded to pink. Your narrator lacks the expertise to tell them apart, and with mushrooms, unless you are "105%" certain of a species identification, erring on the side of caution is mandatory. Many of the Coral fungi contain toxins, and while some people may not react to them, others may respond with mild to severe symptoms of mushroom poisoning. In other words, if you aren't positive of a species, do NOT eat it.

Just as a reminder, per 36 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 2.1 with respect to Mount Rainier National Park, "Edible fungi (mushrooms) - collection of the above is for personal consumption and shall be no more than one (1) gallon per person, per day."

Midas' Hoard

Day 329: I think I have the commercial pickers outfoxed. Most of my favourite 'shroom spots have fallen prey to money-minded gluttons who don't care about the integrity of the resource. They never leave a button, don't care if they demolish the delicate mycelium by pulling rather than cutting because their buyers pay by the pound. Some people will argue that pulling doesn't matter, but I have seen long-standing chanterelle patches decimated by the practice, never to recover from over-harvesting.

This afternoon, I only picked enough for an appetizer, admittedly a sizeable serving, but definitely short of a full dinner. I told myself I didn't need a hog-bait, so I only picked the cleanest specimens and left plenty more behind. In fact, today's basket of gold came from a second new location, discovered once again by following a botanical clue. The commercial pickers are already out. I've seen them parked alongside the road near what used to be some of my best mushrooming spots. Sooner or later, they'll pick themselves out of a job, but for now, I know where Midas' hoard of gold is stashed, and I'm treating it with respect.

Myco-Forensics

Day 327: Acting on a tip given to me by a floral friend last spring (and by that, dear readers, I mean that a little plantie told me), I stopped by ... cough ... excuse me, something in my throat ... this noontime in the hopes of discovering a new "gold panning" location, i.e., a chanterelle spot, and I was not disappointed. Okay, it took me 45 minutes to gather enough for a decent fry-up to accompany tonight's menu of chicken, but I left lots of buttons to grow up into bigger chanterelles. Better yet, I really doubt anyone else would think to hunt them at this site even if they could figure out how to access it. It's not that it's difficult to reach, but you have to know how. As for my botanical benefactor, I am not at liberty to give a name. In the science of myco-forensics, secrets must be closely guarded.

Freeze-Dried Amanitas

Day 38: My photo software continues to be problematic, so I have taken the liberty of getting a few items ready for posting during a moment when it chose to be cooperative. I hope my regular readers will forgive any geographic redundancies which may occur (e.g., this image was also shot at Longmire, as was yesterday's).

Last week, a cold snap took the Plant Kingdom by surprise. My dogwood and mountain ash had just begun to shed their leaves, and neither my Japanese maple nor the contorted filbert had dropped a single one until the temperature plummeted abruptly into the low 20s. The chilly temps were accompanied by strong winds...drying winds, as I was soon to discover when I looked out on a scene of withered, pendant foliage still clinging to the twigs. A few more days of wind carried the maple's leaves into the neighbor's yard, but the filbert is still hanging on to its little flags. In the course of a discussion yesterday, I learned that the lack of cold prior to this weather event had not permitted the formation of the ablation layer of cells required for normal leaf-drop.

This photo shows a phenomenon I've never seen before in the Pacific Northwest: mushrooms freeze-dried in situ. These Amanitas, formerly thick and plump, shrivelled until they were thinner than a pancake (and resembled one at first glance). Now papery and brittle, the drying winds and accompanying cold dessicated them where they stood, just as the weather had sucked the moisture out of the deciduous foliage. I will be interested to see how this affects next year's growth.

A Day's Mushrooming

Makeup Day 1: Two members of the interpretive staff and I went out during lunch break today to see how the Ramaria araoispora was coming along. In the process, we found dozens of other beautiful specimens to photograph whether or not we'll ever be able to positively identify more than just a few species. Also among our finds were enough chanterelles for a couple of servings of "Ranger Fries." I seethed mine in butter seasoned with garlic salt and just a touch of thyme. Top, Pholiota sp.; bottom left, Ramaria araiospora rubella; bottom right, Cantharellus sp.