BULLETIN OF THE PUGET SOUND MYCOLOGICALSOCIETY
Number 325, October 1996
Electronic Edition is published monthly, September through Juneby the
Puget Sound Mycological Society
Center for Urban Horticulture, Box 354115
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
(206) 522-6031
Agnes A. Sieger, Editor
Dick Sieger, HTML Editor
MEMBERSHIP MEETING
Tuesday, October 8, 1996, at 7:30 pm in the Center for UrbanHorticulture, 3501 NE 41st Street, Seattle
For the October meeting, PSMS member Richard Potts will discussvolunteers for Outdoors Washington. He will talk about its historyand projects and how and where PSMS and its members can jointogether to help build trails and do other stewardship throughoutthe state. In addition, Joanne Young will give an update on theannual exhibit, and time will be spent coordinating field trips forcollecting show specimens.
Marsi and Magda DiGiovanni need PSMS members to bring snacks forthe social hour after the meeting. This month, would members withlast names starting with A–G please bring a small tray ofgoodies to go with the coffee and punch provided by PSMS?
CALENDAR
Oct. 5,6 Field trip for members and their guestsOct. 7 Basic ID class for members who have registeredOct. 8 Monthly meeting, 7:30 pm, CUHOct. 9 Intermediate ID class for members who have registeredOct. 12 Annual Exhibit, 12:00–8:00 pm, CUHOct. 13 Annual Exhibit, 10:00 am–6:00 pm, CUHOct. 14 Board meeting Basic ID class for members who have registeredOct. 16 Intermediate ID class for members who have registeredOct. 19,20 Field trip for members and their guestsOct. 21 Basic ID class for members who have registeredOct. 22 Microscopy workshop, 7:00 pm, CUH Board RoomOct. 23 Intermediate ID class for members who have registeredOct. 25 Spore Prints deadlineOct. 26,27 Mountaineers/PSMS weekend for members who have registeredOct. 28 Basic ID class for members who have registeredOct. 30 Intermediate ID class for members who have registeredNov. 2 Field trip for members and their guestsNov. 4 Basic ID class for members who have registeredNov. 6 Intermediate ID class for members who have registeredNov. 9–11 Fall Foray for members who have registered
THIRTY-THIRD ANNUAL EXHIBIT Joanne Young
September had record rainfalls, and it’s feeling like Fall around Puget Sound. That’s good news for us. We should have an excellent display for the mushroom exhibit. There’s still time to sign up to help, and we need you! An hour or two of your time will be greatly appreciated. If you missed the September meeting, call me, call one of the committee people listed in the September Spore Prints, or sign up at the October membership meeting. There are plenty of jobs available.
Everyone is urged to go out and collect for the show. Don’t worry about duplicating specimens; it helps the tray arrangers to have a good selection. If you can’t get out into the woods, city parks, yards, and parking strips are good places to look.
Please bring a dish to share in the hospitality kitchen, either a salad, hot dish, fruit, bread, or dessert.
Members should remember to park in the lots north and west of CUH: Lot E4 (on Clark Road past the Fire Arts Bldg.) and Lot E5 (on west toward the UW). The purpose is to keep the CUH parking lots available for visitors. If anyone can offer to shuttle members from their cars to CUH, please give me a call.
Members will be admitted free when they present their membership cards at the door. General admission is $5.00, tickets for students and seniors are $2.00, and children under 12 are admitted free. The exhibit opens at noon on Saturday, October 12th, and closes at 8:00 pm. On Sunday, October 13th, it is open from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm.
See you at the show!
COLLECTING FOR THE ANNUAL EXHIBIT
The main attraction of our annual mushroom show is, of course, the many fresh, wild mushrooms. Each year, however, many mushrooms that are brought in cannot be used in the exhibit, because they are too old or damaged. Here are a few hints to ensure that your mushrooms make it to the exhibit floor.
Equipment
Take along small boxes, such as berry baskets, cut-down milk cartons, bedding plant containers, cottage cheese containers, etc., so you can keep the collections separate. Keep a few lids for some containers, since collections of very small mushrooms (for example, Mycena spp.) dry out easily, and the lids keep the moisture in (shoe boxes also work well).
Take along some larger boxes for the larger specimens and for carrying the smaller containers. Boxes that can be nested or stacked are convenient for getting fungi back. You may also want to use wax paper bags or loosely wrapped aluminum foil for fungi needing special care. If you want any of your containers back, please mark them clearly with your name and phone number.
Include a trowel or shovel for digging up mushrooms growing on the ground and the surrounding substrate and a knife and/or small saw for collecting specimens growing on wood. A spray bottle is useful for keeping the mushrooms moist if the weather is dry.
Collecting
Collect each specimen as if it will be the only specimen of this variety found, and if it is not in good condition when it arrives at CUH, we cannot show it. If possible, collect a good population of each variety from one area, including buttons as well as mature mushrooms. Do not collect old or broken mushrooms, as they will not last for the show.
Keep each collection separate. Do not mix like species. If you find only one of a species in a given area, keep it in a separate container. If you are collecting mushrooms that grow on the ground, be sure to include some of the surrounding substrate (dirt, moss, pine needles, etc.). If possible, cut off a piece of a log or branch with mushrooms growing on wood. If this is not possible, be careful, when cutting or sawing, to get the whole mushrooms.
Every year, show collectors bring in some rare mushrooms. To make them scientifically useful, however, mycologists need to know where they came from, what they were growing with, etc. In case one of your finds turns out to be the discovery of the year, please include a piece of paper with your name, phone number, and the place of collection, so a mycologist can contact you.
Summing Up
We hope every member will collect specimens for the show. You might find them in your own yard. Other places in the city where you can go are parks, ravines, cemeteries, and other people’s yards (please ask permission to collect). Collect only whole, fresh, complete specimens. Dig them up with a trowel or cut them off the wood.
Keep them in separate containers (if possible). Identify the area where you found them (you don’t have to identify the mushrooms) and add your name and phone number. Don’t try to hunt too far from your car, or you’ll have too much to carry out.
Bring your collections to the Center for Urban Horticulture any time after 5 pm on Friday, October 11, or after 7:00 am on Saturday. We need fresh specimens throughout the exhibit, so keep them coming in throughout Saturday and Sunday.
EXHIBIT MYCOPHAGY Patrice Benson
Each year lots of effort goes into the production of our wild mushroom show. One of the most popular stops for our visitors has been the Cooking and Tasting demonstration. Each year, in the spirit of foraging, the Cooking and Tasting chairs venture out of the woods and into the urban scene to ask for donations of time, cooking supplies, and, most of all, mushrooms. Colleen Compton and Patrice Benson will be organizing this part of the exhibit this year and urge you to sign up at the next meeting to donate a few hours to help produce the finest tasting ever. You need not be a graduate of the Culinary Institute to help (although we welcome those who are!). We need choppers, cleaners, and servers to assist our chefs (which we also need).
If you are collecting for the scientific display, please remember to collect any choice edibles you see for the tasting section. We serve hundreds and hundreds of samples to eager tasters, and thus we need lots of mushrooms! Please bring your fresh or dried mushrooms to the cooking area in the Douglas Classroom after noon on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday morning.
OPEN MICROSCOPY SESSION Brandon Matheny
Well, for microscopy, the season is always open, but at the next session we extend special encouragement to those who just couldn’t register for any of the ID classes or make the field trips to come in with your mushrooms and questions you may have. Of course, I may have to “probe” you to just “slide” into a seat and tackle some of the “mounting” mushrooms in question.
The date is Tuesday, October 22, from 7:00–10:00 pm in the PSMS Board Room, so mark your calendars! Preregistration is not required, and there is no fee.
HOT OFF THE PRESS Joanne Young
PSMS has just published 12,000 greeting cards featuring the six watercolor illustrations first seen on the 1984 exhibit poster. Thanks to Brian Luther, each card has original text describing the mushrooms. Printer Qualigraphics performed minor miracles and achieved top quality using ancient film. The cards will be ready by the October membership meeting. Watch for them!
FIELD TRIPS Wayne & Patrice Elston
Unless stated otherwise, the meeting time at field trips is 9:00 am at the chosen site. Please bring a basket, knife, wax paper, compass, whistle, water, lunch, and a dish to share if you wish to join the potluck. Wear warm clothes. Include rain gear in your car or pack and wear hiking shoes or boots. Feel free to bring your friends, family, and sociable dogs. From 9:00 to 9:30 or 10:00 am, we check in, have munchies, and talk about the mushrooms we’ll be searching for and the area around the camp site. We then head out to hunt in small groups. Identification is from noon to 4 pm The potluck is between 4 and 6 pm, decided on by the participants in the morning. The potlucks are always delicious, a lot of fun, and a great time to catch up on socializing. We highly recommend them!
LAKE QUINAULT FALL FORAY Patrice Benson
Members and their guests may reserve space now for the PSMS Fall Foray, November 9–11 on the shores of Lake Quinault. See printed edition of Spore Prints for registration information.
Our foray mycologist will be Brian Luther, who, in addition to being particularly gifted in mushroom identification, is also a ardent naturalist. A nature walk with Brian is a treat not to be missed. Foray activities include mushroom collecting, identification, slide presentations, nature walks, and gourmet food. There are sure to be a mushroom tasting and some social activities as well. As a special feature, we will be holding a noncollecting mushroom walk in Bill’s Bog, the only mushroom reserve in the world.
The foray site is on a beach at Lake Quinault in the heart of the Olympic Mountains at the edge of Olympic National Park. The accommodations are rustic, but there are hot water and showers, heated cabins (bare bunks, eight persons per cabin), and a lodge with excellent cooking and dining facilities. Cost is $40 per person and includes programs, two nights accommodation, and two breakfasts, a lunch, and a dinner (Saturday dinner is potluck). Space is limited to 60 people.
Foray volunteers needed. Although most of the organizing for the Fall Foray has been done, so far we don’t have an official chair. A person with a phone and friendly people skills is needed to learn the ropes. We will be doing our own meals, so a cooking team is also necessary.
CLOSE-UP PHOTO WORKSHOP Brandon Matheny
PSMS member Tom Ahlers led an eager crew through a series of workshops on close-up photography. The series ended in a rather laid-back field trip in which we snatched one of the last camping spots available at Mora Campground in Olympic National Park, where class participants turned Tom’s instructions toward fungi and flowering plants. A good variety of fruiting subjects was spotted, posed, framed in various camera view finders, and then blindingly flashed from the sides, above, and at arm’s length at twisted angles. They were stars—for a moment—and, at last, their ephemerality was captured on Kodachrome 25 slide film. From the rubbery-coated Russula crassotunicata to the scaly-skinned Gomphus floccosus to the knuckle-knocking Ganoderma applanatum to the tiny, delicately blue Mycena amicta, we encountered a wide array of specimens, too many to mention here.
Special thanks go to Tom Ahlers for conducting the class and preparing a skilletful of Gianpietro Miglia’s mega-haul of Laetiporus sulphureus served in French provincial fashion on slices of Sara and Jeff Clark’s fresh bread. And I make no exaggeration when I say the society could fund trips to the moon on a Mary Taylor baked-goods sale. Thanks also go to Ben Woo for his visit and tips at the second workshop and to Becky Johnson at CUH for her generous scheduling support.
Elias Fries, Observationes Mycologicae (illustrated):
"Illustrations appeal to idlers who do not have energy enough to study descriptions."
TO DYE FOR Sara Clark
Wouldn’t it be fun when winter is blustering outside to take out some dried up mushrooms and some lovely memories of sunny Fall days spent gathering them and mess around with some steaming pots and see what kinds of colors could be coaxed from the shriveled sporocarps?
With this in mind, you’re invited to collect “specimens of interest.” We can try anything this fall for some experimenting in the “off season.”
A few things to look for are the small Cortinarius with bright undersides, particularly C. phoeniceus and C. sanguineus, lobster mushrooms, elfin saddles, Leccinum scabrum (the birch bolete), tubes from Boletus edulis, Phaeolus schweinitzii (that big brown stump rotter), Echinodontium tinctorium (the Indian paint fungus), Naematoloma fasciculare, any Hydnellum (the woody tooth fungi), and Amanita muscaria.
In the January Spore Prints, we’ll set a winter meeting date.
THE SAM RISTICH NAMA FORAY Ben Woo
The 1996 foray of NAMA (North American Mycological Association) took place on the last weekend of August at Mount Ascutney, Vermont. It was hosted by NEMF (Northeast Mycological Federation), a consortium of 18 mycological societies in the region, whose annual foray attracts a large attendance of amateur as well as professional mycologists. This year’s event was named in honor of Sam Ristich, beloved guru and mycological godfather of NEMF.
The collecting area of rolling hills, forested with maple, oak, birch, ash, beech, and pine, is mycologically rich, yielding an astonishing variety of species despite the drought that follows NAMA from coast to coast. Dry weather limited the quantities of mushrooms, especially edibles; chanterelles had come with early summer rains, but were now in short supply. The large assemblage of professional mycologists and expert identifiers—there were twenty listed on the foray faculty—assured that very few collections would escape naming, and the final list will probably come in between 450 and 500 species.
Vermont is charming, small scale, and economically challenged. The foray was headquartered at the Mount Ascutney Ski Area, with excellent accommodations. A dental emergency sent me and Ruth to Woodstock, a picturesque village of historic buildings and upscale maple syrup shops. The country roads were dotted with flea markets and yard sales. We were chased by a rabid skunk, who apparently owned the Russula I was trying to photograph. Attendance was 362 registered, including seven from Washington State. I saw Patrice Benson, Lynn Phillips, and Denis Benjamin.
Next year’s NAMA Foray will be held at Copper Mountain in Colorado, followed in 1998 by a February foray at the Asilomar Conference Center near Monterey, California.
CLASSES AND KUDOS
Mushroom class: Dr. Susan Libonatti-Barnes will be presenting a class on “Edible Mushrooms and Their Poisonous Look-alikes” at the Burke Museum on October 15 from 7–10 pm. Call 543-5591 for details and reservations.
Mushroom missionary: Dick Sieger presented a program, “Urban Mushrooms,” to the Northwest Mushroom Association in Bellingham on August 15.
MUSHROOM POISONING IN UKRAINE
The Associated Press reports that so far wild mushrooms have fatally poisoned 15 adults and 13 children in Ukraine, and the 1996 season is just reaching its peak. Last year, 78 people died and more than a 1000 were hospitalized after they ate poisonous mushrooms. Inexperienced people are mistaking a deadly white mushroom (Amanita?) for harmless champignons (Agaricus?). Mushrooming is a popular pastime, and tough economic conditions have prompted people to seek wild mushrooms for food.
Old-timer with full basket to tyro finding his first Boletus edulis: “Don’t pet it! Pick it!”
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