Agnes A. Sieger, Editor
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE Joanne Young
PSMS would like to thank the Nature Conservancy for lending us the digital projector used to show Dr. Bryce Kendrick's CD-ROM at April's monthly meeting. To see more of Dr. Kendrick's photos, go to "The Fifth Kingdom" on-line at http://www.pacificcoast.net/~mycolog/fifthtoc.html .
We have a new vice-president/program chair. He is someone well known to you and vastly overqualified. Find out who at the next meeting.
It is almost certain that the Annual Exhibit will be held this year at Sand Point, in the Brig! Dates are October 14 and 15. The great news is that Ron Post and Ben Woo will co-chair. Ben Woo is a founding member of PSMS and its first president. An architect, now retired, Ben has chaired at least ten Annual Exhibits for PSMS. We are fortunate to have Ben and Ron back again, especially with the interesting challenges of a new location!
CALENDAR
May 6 field trip
May 9 Membership meeting, 7:30 PM, CUH
May 12_14 PSMS/Key Council/USFS mushroom survey
May 13_14 field trip
May 15 Board meeting, 7:30 PM, CUH Board Room
May 20_21 field trip
May 23 Cultivation meeting, 7:30 PM, CUH Board Room
May 26 Spore Prints deadline
May 27_28 field trip
June 3 field trip
BOARD NEWS Agnes Sieger
Jim Berlstein presented information on the Breitenbush 2000 Conference scheduled for October 26_29. He hopes the conference will be a good mix of science and general interest. Every effort is being made to keep the cost below $250.
Education Chair Colin Meyer is planning classes for summer and fall. We still needs hosts for the American River and Bridge Creek field trips. Colin and Corey have updated the Web site and deleted obsolete information. They need a volunteer to redesign the graphics. A rough draft of the PSMS membership roster was passed around for perusal.
Ron Post has agreed to co-chair the Annual Exhibit with Ben Woo. The Exhibit will be held at Sand Point on October 14_15. Lynn Phillips, Patrice Benson, and Colin Meyer will prepare a preliminary PSMS budget. Sites were discussed for a fall foray. The summer picnic will be Sunday, July 23, at Shelter 5 in Seward Park. Mary Lynch has offered to chair a Conservation Committee.
MEMBERSHIP MEETING
Tuesday, May 9, at 7:30 pm at the Center for Urban Horticulture, 3501 NE 41st Street, Seattle
A farewell program will be given by two valued PSMS members, Jim Berlstein and Dr. Denis Benjamin, who unfortunately will soon be moving on to other climes.
Jim Berlstein will move to Berkshire County in western Massachusetts this summer to begin teaching, having recently received his teaching certificate after studying at Seattle Pacific University. Jim will show his beautiful mushroom photos, one of which you will recognize as the model for the 1999 exhibit poster. He showed his photos at the exhibit slide shows when few of us were free to attend. He has been our program stand-in for two years, ready to fill in on short notice if one of our scheduled speakers was unable to appear.
Denis Benjamin is leaving for Ft. Worth, Texas, to become Director of Laboratories at Cook Children's Hospital, after holding the same position at Seattle's Children's Hospital and Medical Center for 26 years. He wrote Mushrooms: Poisons and Panaceas, a treasure filled with mycological history, science, and anecdotes. Denis is a popular Northwest storyteller and gives cooking demonstrations at the Herbfarm. Two great treats. Be sure not to miss them!
Would members whose last names begin with the letters P_T please bring a plate of refreshments for the social hour?
Mushroom Growers Travel Opportunity
Joanne Young
Several weeks ago PSMS was contacted by an international private voluntary organization funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. ACDI/VOCA, or Agricultural Cooperative Development International/Volunteers Overseas Cooperative Assistance Program, is looking for volunteers for several mushroom cultivation projects in Russia.
Many of VOCA's projects are volunteer, where they recruit qualified personnel who donate their time and travel abroad for 2_3 weeks at a time to assist in a number of technical capacities. The assignments are completely voluntary. VOCA does cover all expenses, including airfare, hotel, drivers, translators, etc., plus a daily per diem for meals and incidental expenses.
Currently, their Russia program is experiencing a large number of requests for mushroom specialists in a number of technical areas, including production, compost preparation, tunnel construction, etc.
If you have technical expertise to share and this sounds intriguing, please feel free to contact Kirill Reznik at the e-mail address or phone number below.
Kirill Reznik, Project Coordinator, ACDI/VOCA
50 F Street, NW, Suite 1075
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 383-4987, (202) 783-7204-fax
KReznik@acdivoca.org
Details of some of their current projects will soon be posted on the PSMS members e-mail news list that Colin Meyer is setting up.
WANTED: Website Graphic Designer
Do you have an eye for style? D.V. Corey and Colin Meyer have been organizing and updating the information on the / website for awhile and would like a hand coming up with a cool design. If you feel you qualify, please e-mail Colin at cmeyer@helvella.org or call (206) 722- 6687.
Cultivation Group Meeting Colin Meyer
Cultivating mushrooms is a fun activity and popular among PSMS members. In the recent past, the cultivation group has been very informal, and the general membership has not always been informed of the meetings. In addition, our resident cultivator has moved away from the area and can no longer perform regular workshops.
It is time that PSMS had a formal Cultivation Group, with pre-announced meetings and activities, that all members are welcome to attend. For anyone interested in helping out with this group, please attend the organizational meeting at the CUH Board Room, May 23 from 7:30_8:30 PM. Cultivation expertise is not necessary.
For more information, please contact me at cmeyer@helvella.org or (206)
722-6687.
[Ed. Note: Please check with Colin or the PSMS Web site to confirm the time and
place.]
NEW FEDERAL FOREST PRODUCTS LAW
Mycological Society of San Francisco message board
A last-minute rider regulating non-timber products on national forest land was attached to a federal budget bill, HR3194, that has already been signed into law. The basic idea is that every district in every national forest will be required to charge money for the collection of any non-timber forest product, and that the fees gathered must be sufficient to support the permit program within the individual district. Before you panic, however, note section (e)(1):
(e) WAIVER AUTHORITY
(1) PERSONAL USE - The Secretary of Agriculture shall establish a personal use harvest level for each forest botanical product, and the harvest of a forest botanical product below that level by a person for personal use shall not be subject to charges and fees under subsections (b) and (c).
(2) OTHER EXCEPTIONS - The Secretary may also waiver the application of subsection (b) or (c) pursuant to such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe.
The full text of the rider can be found on the PSMS Web site
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Fungi and biological control of animal parasites Anders Tunlid et al., via Fungifama,
So. Vancouver Island. Myco. Soc., April 2000
Nematode worms are a large problem in animal production all over the world. Often the worms live in the animal's gut and cause disorders such as diarrhea, with resulting weight loss and consequent economic loss. At present nematode infections are controlled largely with the use of anthelminthics such as ivermectin, which are given to animals as a curative treatment. However, the frequent use of anthelminthics causes the parasites to develop resistance to the drugs, and there is increasing public concern about chemical residues in animal products and in the environment.
One approach to developing alternative control strategies is biological control using natural enemies of nematodes. One group of such enemies is nematophagous fungi. During the past few years, Professor Peter Nansen and colleagues at the Center for Experimental Parasitology in Copenhagen have demonstrated that such fungi can be used to control parasitic nematodes found in the gastrointestinal tracts of cattle and horses. Many of these nematodes have a life cycle with stages living inside the host and other stages living outside the host in the dung and surrounding grass.
Control using nematode-trapping fungi, particularly Duddingtonia flagrans, is achieved by feeding the animals chlamydospores of the fungus. Some of the spores survive passage through the digestive system and are deposited in the animals' feces. The fungus germinates and forms traps that can infect and kill free-living stages of parasitic nematodes.
Camp Long, March 25 Mike Lovelady
It was a nice day for a field trip. The sun was out, birds were singing, and the feeling of spring was in the air. A group of
twenty or so showed up. We drank coffee, ate donuts, and socialized for a while. Then we walked to an old cottonwood tree. I gave advice on how to find, identify, and collect Verpa bohemica, with a warning about the possibility of gastrointestinal upset and/or loss of muscular coordination. The field trip was a success. We found a dozen or so Verpas. The kids had fun finding the slime gelatin globs of salamander eggs that are always plentiful in the Camp Long pond at this time of year. One by one we went our ways.
MacDonald State Park, April 2 Brian Luther
Fortunately we had good weather for this traditional half-day trip to the cottonwoods in Carnation. I gave an introduction to Verpas, including the usual cautions about edibility, and Patrice Benson demonstrated correct collecting methods. Maybe 20 or so people showed up, but only a few saw the sign-in sheet, so the actual number is unclear. Everybody seemed glad to be out for a brief time to bond with nature, and most everyone found at least a few Verpas, etc.
Special thanks to our guides for the day, including Patrice Benson, Mike Lovelady, and Steven Bell. We got a surprise visit from Dick Sieger, who had just gotten back from a month-long trip with Agnes to Europe. We didn't recognize him at first, because he was dressed like a downtown banker and looked relaxed and tanned. He recounted some of their favorite places and dining experiences. Perhaps we can get Dick and Agnes to put together a slide program of their European adventures some time?
Twenty-three species of fungi were collected and displayed, including 10 gilled mushrooms, 6 polypores, and 7 Ascomycetes. A couple of the beautiful Scarlet Cups (Sarcoscypha coccinea) were found, and the surprise of the day was an unusual spring fruiting of the Gilled Bolete (Phylloporus rhodoxanthus).
Special thanks to Mike Lovelady for bringing the coffee and to the other trip leaders for contributing goodies.
A NOSE FOR FUNGI Mycolog
Humboldt Bay Myco. Soc., Jan. 2000, via Fungifama,
South Vancouver Island Myco. Soc., March 2000
A two-year study by the Mayo Clinic of 210 sinusitis sufferers found that more than 90% of the cases were caused by an immune system response to a common fungus, Aspergillus The researchers attributed the discovery to improved techniques for testing for fungus in mucus samples. Aspergillus is a microscopic Ascomycete closely related to Penicillium.
HAMBURGER STROGANOFF WITH MORELS
Hope's Mushroom Cookbook, by Hope Miller
1 garlic clove, minced
2/3 cup chopped onions
2 Tbl margarine
1 lb extra lean ground beef
8 oz. sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup
Morels (up to 1 cup fresh
or 1/4 cup dried and
reconstituted)
Butter or margarine
Sauté garlic and onion in margarine until tender. Add ground beef and cook until brown. Add sour cream and mushroom soup. Simmer until hot. Add morels to mixture; simmer a few minutes more. Serve over noodles.
The FOWM Chanterelle Taste-Off
David Pilz, October 23, 1999
via Fungfama, So. Vancouver Island Myco. Soc., April
2000
Introduction and Methods: At this year's Foray of Western (professional) Mycologists (FOWM), we had an opportunity to test chanterelle taste preferences. Prior to the FOWM our Oregon weather had been dismally dry for over three weeks. Nevertheless the FOWM, participants succeeded in finding three species of chanterelles: C. formosus, C. subalbidus, and what we are presuming was C. cibarius v. roseocanus from Engelmann spruce forests at higher elevations. The dryness of all specimens eliminated water content as a complicating factor in comparisons of taste.
All three collections were chopped into pieces of about 1 cm cubed or less and sautéed in copious quantities of olive oil with a pinch of salt. The cook did his best to standardize ingredients, heat, and cooking time. All three batches were cooked in iron skillets and placed side by side on a dish. The three species of chanterelles were labeled with a circle, a square, and a
triangle to avoid prejudicing tasters with ranks such as A, B, C or 1, 2, 3.
Tasters were then asked to rank the three entries according to preference. Ties were allowed and comments encouraged. Symbols were tallied by ranks and then the counts by rank were multiplied by the following preference weights: favorite preference = 3; second favorite preference = 2; least favorite preference = 1.
Results: And the winner was—Cantharellus subalbidus [the circle]: rank 1 = 11, rank 2 = 5, rank 3 = 6. Score: (3´11) + (2´5) + (6´1) = 49. The close second was Cantharellus cibarius v. roseocanus [the square]: rank 1 = 8, rank 2 = 9, rank 3 = 5. Score: (3´8) + (2´9) + (1´5) = 47. And our poor little loser was Cantharellus formosus [the triangle]: rank 1 = 3, rank 2 = 10, rank 3 = 9. Score: (3´3 )+ (2´10) + (1´9) = 38.
Methodological critiques: The trial had no replication or blocking. Sample sizes were limited and disappeared quickly. Chunk size may have influenced how much of the olive oil was absorbed and how crispy the piece became (but samplers either choose pieces randomly or some intentionally controlled for uniform chunk size).
The value weights applied to the ranks constitute an arbitrary scale, The distance between ranks 1 & 2 may be greater than between 2 & 3. Future trials might better use a scale of 1_10 in addition to ranking .
The types and quantities of wine previously consumed may have affected the taste resolution and biases of samplers. Some samplers associated the symbols used to label the specimens with certain flavor qualities, hence negating the attempt to assign valueless labels for blind testing. `The circle implies a smooth rounded quality," one sampler described at length with many hand gestures. (Sorry, I didn't note what type of wine this individual was drinking.)
Interesting observations: Almost everyone commented that they were surprised that they really could distinguish differences in taste when sampled side by side. (The sequence of tasting was not standardized.)
Even though most liked C. formosus the least, some liked it the best, describing it as having a "nutty flavor' they preferred. An individual from Denmark and another from the Netherlands both commented that the "square" (C. cibarius v. roseocanus) tasted most similar to C. cibarius from Europe. All agreed the "experiment was a smashingly good idea," and enjoyed the comparisons.
Acknowledgments: My thanks to Larry Evans and Eric Danell for the taste test idea and to the many individuals who disagreed about chanterelle flavors for motivation to conduct the test.
