Breitenbush Mushroom Conference

I couldn't have asked for better weather for hunting mushrooms. It was sunny, autumn warm during the day with crisp-cold and star-filled nights.
The Big-leaf maples and alder leaves were bright yellow and the vine maples red. The leaves were falling, drifting over the road both on the main highway and even more picturesque on the side road from Detroit to Breitenbush. I drove up to the conference center. The photos don't even vaguely convey the intensity of the colors.

There were plenty of mushrooms available in the area, most of which don't occur this far north, but there was some overlap in species between the Sitka and Breitenbush. I didn't nececessarily expect there to be alot of overlap given the differences in vascular plant species and in the climate, I was just hopeful that there would be more species in common. Still it was valuable learning/relearning some species that might show up here at some point.
The speakers were pretty engaging; I particularly enjoyed and will no doubt use Tom Volk's description of what it would be like if people digested then ingested their food (like fungi) instead of ingesting then digesting food. Also found useful his description of waxy gills as similar to hardening candle wax. Not that it is terribly easy to fill the gills of Hygrophori, but now I have a better description of what a waxy gill is. I had totally forgotten about secondary homothallism until his lecture. Instead of 4 spores per basidia these fungi produce 2 spores. Each spore has 2 nuclei. Kind of handy not to need to find a compatible mating type of hyphae in order to reproduce. He showed a great little clip of hyphal growth borrowed from Fungal Cell biology website http://129.215.156.68/movies.html, there are also images that can be used for educational purposes. http://129.215.156.68/images.html

His second lecture talked about common misconceptions about fungi. He used his grandmother as the vehicle for this talk "my grandmother said that if you cooked mushrooms with a silver spoon and the spoon turned black, the mushrooms are poisonous". It was an entertaining way to cover the subjecty, alas I can't use it as my grandmothers never said anything about mushrooms and my mother had too much of a science background to say anything too crazy.

Paul Stamets gave a inspirational talk about how fungi could save the planet. He was preaching to the choir and the choir enjoyed the sermon. One topic that was interesting to me was the use (and medicinal value) of Fomitopsis officinalis by the Haida people of Haida Gwai. The species doesn't occur on the islands because it is associated with Douglas Fir which doesn't make it that far north. Paul suggested that it was an item that was collected on their travels down the coast. They were apparently also collecting people. Nancy Turner's book Plants of the Haida Gwaii doesn't mention any use of this species or of F. pinicola which occurs on the isands. Apparently the myceldium contains chemicals that are active against smallpox, something that would have been more than a little useful when that disease spread up the coast.

His second talk was also pretty interesting, more how fungi could help our souls.

Dorothy Beebee didn't give a formal presentation but offered a hand's on dye workshop Friday afternoon. We used Hypholoma fasiculare, Phaeolus schweinitzii and Hypomyces (lobster mushroom). All gave nice yellows. I did learn that to intensify colors of Hydnellums one should use alkali (washing soda) and a little acid (vinegar) will do the same for colors from Dermocybe.

I took alot of photos of the fungi collected; I'm including a few of the interesting ones.

Cyathus striatus. I suppose it could be C. helenae (the latter has hairs in tufts, the former the hairs aren't in tufts.), but the hairs don't look particularly tufted.

Gomphidius subrosea: this was probably the most common fungus that I saw in the forest. It is nicely viscid, apparently edible if you like slime and mycorrhizal with Doug Fir. Since there was an abundance of Chanterelles and other more highly regarded edibles, none of these mushrooms were delivered to the chef.

Found my first Matsutake (Tricholoma magnivelare) on this trip. On Saturday morning, went with a group up the Breitenbush highway toward Estacada, turned on the Red Lake road and parked about 1 mile in. I walked up the slope toward the larger Douglas Firs. It was very open and dry. Saw just a bit of the white cap of the matsutake, thought it was a Russula until I could see the veil. The smell is difficult for me to describe, except as strong.

I found a couple of references to this fungus being associated with Allotropa virgata, a mycotrophic vascular plant. Seems that Allotropa is dependent on this fungus for carbohydrates. http://www.bayareamushrooms.org/mushroommonth/matsutake.html
Found a number of Larch trees on this trip to Red Lake trail. Most had turned bright yellow.

Auriscalpium vulgare

A saprophyte on Douglas Fir cones. This is supposed to be widely distributed in North America, not sure what type of cones it utilizes outside the distribution of Doug fir, maybe pines?

Geastrum: I haven't decided which species of Earth Star. Definately haven't seen any of these puffballs in southeast.

I didn't see alot of birds at Breitenbush, but then I spent most of my time outdoors head down looking for fungi in in one of the hotspring pools. Did see a dipper in the river while soaking. Extremely luxurious, not quite as much as watching shooting stars from the pools, but close enough. Did see a very tame Gray jay on one of the forays.

Seems that there are places in the Pacific Northwest where the leaves are red and gold and the sun shines all day long. I'll not dwell on the downside of this part of the world.

Dad and I went to Minto park in the afternoon. Many, many geese, looked like both Dusky Canada and Cackling were in the slough and flying over. I only remember hearing about Duskies when I was a kid, but then cacklers were just another type of Canada goose at that time. Found a report in the Thursday morning Statesman Journal that talked about Cackling geese arriving in mid October and staying through the winter. Guess I need to update my Willamette valley information.

Watched a Great Egret feeding on the far side of the slough. The yellow beak excluded a Snowy egret and the size and lack of brown-red seems to indicate a Great as opposed to a cattle egret, but I'm not totally convinced. . What was kind of interesting was the way it undulated its neck from side to side between strikes. The very bright and warm sun made it a bit difficult to identify most of the birds, but I could make out American Widgeons, Mallards, Coots, Double crested cormorants and Kingfishers.

Doesn't matter how well I know that the leaves of Acer macrophyllum are large, every time I see them I'm impressed. Gathered a bouquet of bright yellow ones for Dad.

Sunday afternoon the sun came out and the feeder was swarming with birds and I realized that I'm seriously smitten with the Nuthatches. At least it seems like obsession since I can barely take my eyes off of them when they are around. Being entranced by their chatter is another symptom. I think that I can recognize two of the birds; both are lighter in color than the rest of the birds. According to the Cornell web site the top of the females head are blue-grey, the belly is lighter and the eyestrip narrower. The juveniles are similar to the adults but duller. In the end, I'm not sure if the lighter ones are juveniles or females. After looking at the photos I've taken, I can't notice much difference in the width of the eyestripes of the birds. The belly and head color might be more reliable indicator of gender.

One of the lighter birds is much fluffier than the other rather sleek looking birds. The other light one is just as slender as the other darker or richer colored individuals. I managed to get a photo of the fluffy bird, but not of the sleek one.

Based on the dark head and the brightish belly, I'm assuming that the nuthatch on the feeder is a male.

Found a population of about 20 Armillaria growing in the alder chips in front of the flower garden behind the house. I'm sure that they are the same as I found there last fall. Last fall, I decided they were A. ostoyae based on the macroscopic features. The key character that lead me to ostoyae was the dark fibrils on the surface of the younger caps.

Trolling around Tom Volk's website I read an article about a relatively newly described species of Armillaria (1999); A. nabsnona that had slipped under my radar.

An unfortunately easy thing to accomplish. The clincher for this species was the interesting branching of the basidia. This wasn't a subtle character with a thin section of the gill, at least not with some careful squishing with an eraser on the coverslip.

One interesting thing about Volk's key is the absence of ostoyae. One of the questions I hope to get answered at Breitenbush this week is what happened to ostoyae. That species is included on M. Kuo's key to North American Armillaria. The key lead in the latter key to get to ostoyae is the presence of dark scales on the cap and that the primary host is conifers. Apparently it can also occur on hardwoods.

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/armillaria.html.

http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/feb99.html

http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/armkey.html

Continued to work on putting the garden to bed for the winter. I moved 8 5-gallon buckets of seaweed up the hill, brings me to 14 and I'll need about 10 more to cover the vegetable beds.

Also took a last swipe at the huckleberries just before dark. Didn't add much to the freezer, maybe a half of a gallon zip lock bag, but it was satisfying to pick from the last of the heavy laden bushes by the trail.

On Friday the 17th went for a brief walk up Gavan Hill trail. The weather varied between rain (often rather intense) and brief teaser bits of sunshine. I got soaked.
Collected a mushroom that I only had glimpses of last fall, that is when I found this fungus last year, it was pretty far gone. Last years' were growing in the bench muskeg in areas with alot of small pine trees. It was absent from the areas with abundant Carex livida. This year I found one rather chewed up specimen in the muskeg off the quarry road, again in an area with lots of small pines and ericaceous shrubs.

This patch of the mushrooms were growing near Shore pine rather close to the lower part of the trail. Saw a Hermit thrush while looking for additional populations of this mushroom.
The cap and stipe are a dark pink over white. The less developed caps were a bit deeper pink than the larger ones. The larger caps were slightly lighter on the margins. The largest caps were 6 and 7 cm across. The gills are distant, waxy and white with a bit of a pink cast. The gills did show some pink bruising, but I didn't see any with entirely pink gills. The stem was white at the very top, and the rest pink. The end was attenuated and most had a bit of a curve to the lowermost part. The largest were 10 and 11cm long and 1.5 cm in diameter. The cap and stem were quite moist almost sticky, but they dried quickly. I didn't notice any odor and the taste was mild.

I struggled my way through Hesler and Smith's monograph of Hygrophorus to subsection Camarophylli, series Rubentes; H. erubescens seems to be the best fit. I was tempted by the habitat to call this one H. capreolarius, but that species has darker gills. One subspecies of H. erubescens does seem to occur in bogs in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island, so I'll stick with that species for now.

This mushroom doesn't seem to be as robust or bulky as what I've seen eg. http://www.svims.ca/council/illust/Hygrophorus%20erubescens%201%20Michael%20Beug.htm

This photo looks a bit better http://www.flickr.com/photos/23151213@N03/2525032540/in/pool-84638739@N00

The habitat reference was; Macrofungi from six habitats over five years in Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island
Christine Roberts, Oluna Ceska, Paul Kroeger, and Bryce Kendrick. 2004. Canadian Journal of Botany 82:1518-1538

I noticed that I decided this mushroom was H. pudorinus var pudorinus last year, not sure why I ignored the lack of a yellow stem base. Must have been desperate to call it something.

The 8 nuthatches are still visiting the feeder, they are pretty dedicated at food gathering. They go through whatever amount of food that is put out for them. Still wish I could get a reasonable recording of their chatter, but haven't managed to do so as yet. The birds are pretty tame, at least they keep eating when I'm standing right next to the feeder. Kind of odd for here but, the Juncos and Chickadees are less numerous at the feeder than the Nuthatches.

A Northern Flicker came to the feeder tree a few times over the last two weekends. Didn't land on the feeder or the rail, stayed on a branch nearby.


The Golden crowned sparrows seem to have moved on.


Seeing the Fork-tailed storm petrels most days on my commute, on the 14th they were in the channel between Japonski and town. Also on the 14th saw the first Longtails of the season in the channel.
The commute birds are starting to settle into winter mode; saw a loon with a distinctly yellow bill (I'm willing to call it a Yellow-billed loon) on Thursday and a Common loon on Friday. I noticed the first Harlequins on the rocks by the Galankin dock on Thursday and a pair of mallards on Saturday morning.
The Fork-tailed Storm petrels are around most days. I've only seen one that I thought was a Leach's. Other birds seen on the commute include: Black-legged Kittiwakes, Pelagic and Double Crested Cormorants and one Horned Grebe on the 14th.

Planted the local grown garlic plus 2 new varieties from Territorial, Belarus and Chesanok Red, over the last two weekends. It is the latest that I've planted it, so I'm crossing my fingers that it does well. Have most of the garden harvested and cleaned up, most of the harvest was rather pathetic, but what grew, tasted good. The Maria heirloom potatoes from Haines produced several knobby potatoes somewhat similar in shape to Swedish peanut.
On another catch-up sort of note, there was snow on Picnic Rock on the 6th of October.

Collecting mushrooms has slowed down a little, mostly because I've been busy doing other things. Still there are a few things that I've managed to figure out over the last week or so.

Camarophyllus pratensis: This species was growing on the lawn at Sheldon Jackson.

The cap is a orange or coral color with a somewhat variable shape. Neither the cap or stem are viscid. The The gills are decurrent white and subdistant. The stipe was also white.

The cap color, lack of stickiness and staining and habitat are pretty distinctive, apparently the gills are often the same color as the cap. In Mushrooms Demystified the habitat is either open or grassy places or under Redwoods.

Xylaria cornu-damae: on unidentifiable rotten wood near beginning of Gavan Hill trail. The stalks weren't divided and antler-like as are those of X. hypoxylon. The stalks were more cylindrical and all black on the outer surface. I wasn't really sure what it was until I cut a section lengthwise. The interior was white with black perithecia lining the margin.

The lack of branching, club-shaped head, minutely bumpy surface and white interior seem to be good characters. I'm not entirely sure of the species. The Pacific Northwest Key council key leads me to that species without much trouble and the description seems good. There is a note that suggests that X. longipes might occur in the area, but it isn't documented. Both longipes and cornu-damae are said to occur on hardwood.

Tricholoma vaccinum: Alice Island under open grown Sitka spruce. If I'm remembering right they were growing in a manner that I could call gregarious. Caps were dark brown with darker fibrils, not quite what I would call scales. A key character for this species seems to be the veil remnants on the cap margin. A similar species T. imbricatum lacks the remnants on the cap margin. The stem was light with dark fibrils and hollow in the middle.

The other species seen recently that looks somewhat similar is Tricholoma pessundatum. The viscid cap is a good character to differentiate it. The cap is dark brown black in the center and somewhat lighter at the edge. The stem surface has vertical fibers. There was a strange odor to the fresh cap that dissapated. A patch of this species was growing on SJ campus near the museum in a relatively open woodsy spot under spruce. The largest of the caps were 5-6.5 inches across.

Cortinarius multiformis: Alice island growing under an open grown Sitka Spruce.
Kind of an attractive mushroom with a yellow brown cap, slightly darker brown edge. The cap was slightly viscid when wet and slightly shiny when dry. Has a thicker cobwebby veil that persists on the edge of the cap. Young gills are pale. The stipe is pale with brown fibrils, with a bulbous base.

Hygrophorus camarphyllus vs calophyllus: Alice island on the gravel walk behind the kindegarten that leads to a view of Sealing cove harbor. There were several under Sitka alder growing on the gentle slope from the walk.

Kind of difficult to make a decision about this one. The gills certainly aren't pink as described as sometimes occuring with H. calophyllus.

Did another test of the Cortinarius phoeniceus var. occidentalis. I should use Dermocybe for this species instead of Cortinarius as it was described as such in 1989. I finally found a good reference to the section that includes the red gilled species.

Ammirati, J.F. (1989). Dermocybe, subgenus Dermocybe, section Sanguineae in northern California. Mycotaxon 34 (1): 21-36 that was available at the CyberLiber http://www.cybertruffle.org.uk/cyberliber/

One of the issues I needed settled was the difference between D. semisanguinaria and D. phoenicea var. occidentalis. Cap color seems like it might be a somewhat variable characteristic to hang a species on, but that does seem to be the main characteristic I could find in the descriptions in the article.

The distribution of the two species overlaps, but D. semisanguinarius is more common on the east coast and phoenicea on the west coast.

"Dermocybe phoenicea var occidentalis is the most frequently encountered member of section Sanguineae on the Pacific Coast, extending from Californis into Alaska. It also occurs in the mountains of the interior where it can be found in some years as early as August. It prefers coniferous woods, but also occurs in mixed forests of conifers and deciduous trees. "

Recollected both species of Cortinarius or Dermocybe from the SJ spruce tree, this time keeping them in seperate paper bags. Sorting the dried fruiting bodies was kind of problematic last time and I was curious if the species had been mixed in the dye baths. Basically could I achieve the same colors twice?
Mordanted some roving and loose wool in Alum with a bit of cream of tartar the day before the dye bath. Used 23 brown Cortinarius (best fit is cinnamomeus) and 16 Dermocybe in quart jars about 2/3 full of water. The jars went in a water bath in the double pot designed for pasta. I was hoping that the extra layer would keep the jars from breaking. Also used the dye bath saved from the last round of dyes.

The mushrooms simmered in the dye bath for about 25 minutes before I added the wool. The exhaust dye jar went in the pot about 5 minutes before the wool was added. I let the dye bath go for another hour, then let the wool cool in the dye overnight.

The D. phoenicea wool was a pretty nice rose sort of red, a bit darker than the color of the silk scarf. The exhaust dye (left) was a tangerine color (similar to the color last time) and the Cortinarius cinnamomus was a lighter, duller orange. The pink wool above the red wool in the center is unmordanted wool put in the Dermocybe dyes.

Mushroom dyes

Last year I dyed a small sample of wool with the Cortinareus collected from the Sitka Spruce growing near the flagpole at SJ. I called that fungus. C. semisanguinarius. This year I recollected the red gilled Cort that was growing in the same spot and noticed that the cap seemed alot redder than semisanguinarius is supposed to be and decided that it must be C. phoeniceus var. occidentalis. They both have yellowish stems, red gills, turn black with KOH and have similar (I assume) ecology. The most significant differences seem to be the cap color and occasionally the stem color. The stem color seems to be more variable in semisanguinarius.

It would be nice to have something other than cap color to go on. The ones here aren't as red when wet as some of the photos would suggest, but when dry the caps did look alot redder.

I premordanted the silk scarf and some wool roving in Alum/cream of tartar. The scale I have at home is kind of a joke, so I guessed at the amount of alum. Basically less than a teaspoon for the 2 oz of material. While that simmered, I seperated the mushrooms that had been drying for the last few days. The two types (I had a second rusty orange Cortinarius drying as well) were not so easy to seperate when dry. The difference in the cap color fades with prolonged drying.

Put roughly one ounce of C. phoeniceus var occidentalis in a gallon jar and filled it with warm water. The water turned a pretty deep red in less than 5 minutes. I put the 10 or so of the other Cortinarius in quart jar and let them soak as well. The liquid was more of an orange color.

Rinsed the mordanted silk and wool before adding it to the jars, (the silk in the phoeniceus and the wool in the other). Simmered for 1 hour and let cool in the liquid for several hours. Rinsed both in warm water and let dry.

The scarf is a nice shade of orange red (deep orange red, #36 using the color chips) although it looks more like blood with the flash. The wool is what I would call a soft tangerine sort of orange (bright orange, #54). The orange wool is pretty similar to the color achieved last year. In fact it matches the same color chip. I don't know if I left a few of the phoeniceus in the mix or if in fact the two mushrooms dye wool the same color. Hopefully there are some of each left growing so I can try again.

It was a little slower of a mushroom week, but I did find another Suillus the other day along the Gavan trail. There were 3 or 4 of them under a Pinus contorta just off the board walk not too far past the last fennish muskeg.

Suillus umbonatus: it was growing in kind of a tight cluster near a shore pine so I'm assuming that it is associated with it, although there are Western Hemlock in the area as well.

Cap is viscid, somewhat irregular in shape, the ones I picked were 1. 5 , 2 and 3 inches in diameter. The color was somewhere between light and medium olive brown.

The pores are large and yellow (soft yellow, #84 from the yellow olive brown page). The stem was slender, 1, 1. 5 and 1.75 inches tall were what I measured. No glandular dots that I could see. There was an annulus, it looked like a brown, somewhat transparent slug wrapped around the upper stem. The annulus dried flat and rootbeer brown colored.

I didn't taste this one. No staining reactions. The cap flesh was light gray and the stem flesh a bit yellower than that of the cap.

S. umbonatus seems to be the best fit.

http://www.mykoweb.com/boletes/species/Suillus_umbonatus.html

Also found this relatively inconspicous Inocybe in the second growth off the Gavan trail. I'm not taking this genus any further at this point as there is only so much I can take on at one time. Thought I'd at least pay it my respects by acknowledging its existance.

I'm pretty certain that it is an Inocybe. The spore color is a bit on the dull side and the cap shape looks right. I've been struggling a bit with the subtleties of color lately, so I can only hope that I'm making the right call.

September 27

Julie Roller and I bypassed the two sunny days this week and choose the first rainy day to head up Harbor Gavan to collect seeds. We met around 2pm at Crescent harbor and Julie drove up the mountain. Happy that I brought all my rain gear, but wished I had brought the more serious rain coat.
The weather was merely wet when we started up the trail, wet enough though that we put our raingear on in the cab of her small truck. We were on our way to the meadows of the boulder field where the plants we searching might have ripe seeds. Most of the way along the ridge before the signpost marking the fork we could see the ocean and the surrounding peaks. This changed somewhere before we reached our destination, in fact the rain was intense and rather icy feeling. We passed only one group of fellow hikers (or people with bad timing) along the ridge.
I looked at the hourly weather records for the afternoon taken at sea level, I assume at the airport. They show a nice deterioration in conditions during our hike, but don't really give much of the feel of the wind driven rain in our faces.

1:53: 52F, 74% humidity, 9 miles visibility, winds from the SE at 9.2 miles no rain
2:41: 51 F, 83% humidity, 7 miles visibility, winds from the SE at 9.2 miles, 0.02 rain
2:53: 51, 83% humidity, 6 miles visibility, winds from SSE at 9.2 miles, 0.02 rain
3:53: 50, 87% humidity, 3 miles visibility, winds from SE at 11.5 miles, NA rain
4:22: 50 F, 94% humidty, 3 miles visibility, winds SE 11.5 (gust to 18.5), 0.05 rain

We started back around 4:00 or so just when the weather started to deteriorate nicely. It was easy enough to deal with on the way east, but I favored the head down push sort of posture on the way back to the trail head. The rain made it kind of difficult to use the binoculars that I had managed to bring this trip. Did see several Golden-crowned sparrows.

Both the Geum califolium and Cornus canadensis were a nice red color, the Athyrium was in places quite golden. The nicest micro view was of a patch of Gentiana platypetala blooming next to a patch of bright red Cornus. The only other flowers I saw in bloom were the Erigeron peregrinus and the very dissimilar Erigeron or former Aster. I did take a flower of each home with me. The flowers and leaves are quite dissimilar for purple daisy-like plants. The typical Erigeron has tidy looking heads with relatively short ray flowers. The margins of the leaves are smooth. The alternate daisy creature has larger heads with longer more irregular looking rays and toothed leaf margins. Both have similar looking subtending bracts that are quite hairy. I'm feeling fairly confident that it is Canadanthus modestus, but after all these years of everything being Erigeron, it is hard to shift gears.
I guess there was one Hiericium triste blooming as well.
Collected seeds from Veratrum viride, Anemone narcissifolium, Geranium erianthum, Saussurea perennis and Aconitum delphinifolium. Might try to get back for Gentiana seeds.

I did a quick collecting run Saturday evening through the Historical park and by the SJ lawn. I brought one quart sized ziploc bag which was happily inadequate for what I found on my pre-dinner run. In fact I had the bag over full to spilling and three large Hydnum repandums in my hand by the time I was back to the parking lot. In the park the Amanita muscaria are coming on nicely, there were several very small golden chanterelles and troops of Winter ones. Clitopilus under the spruce by the corner of the lower parking lot. Collected a deep red peppery Russula with yellow spores that I'll call R. queltiii. Also saw Clavaria purpurea, Cortinarius semi-sanguinarius and Entoloma stritus.

I did collect a few new things on the path home including Agaricus smithii.

I haven't found too many Agaricus in southeast outside the grocery store, so I was kind of excited to hear about one growing near the large spruce in the SJ lawn. There were 3 or 4 large mushrooms growing in grass and another one coming up. None of them were fully open, so I'm unsure how large this one can be. I did leave one to grow and am optimistic that it might be allowed to grow (I'm deluding myself on this one). The two individuals I brought home were about 4 inches tall, the stems were rather stout (ca. an inch in diameter) with a larger base. The cap and stem have kind of a golden cast to them that increased with age. The flesh or surface didn't show any staining. There wasn't a distinctive odor to me. It is supposed to have an almond odor, but it isn't apparent to my weak nose. The ring is membranous, but difficult to see with the cap unexpanded. The base of the stem was large enough to key this one to A. smithii.

Tricholoma pessundatum: The Tricholoma was growing under Western Hemlock in moss under Sitka spruce beside the path to the plaque on Merrill Rock. I collected several as the fruiting bodies were rather abundant.

The cap was medium red Brown (#43) with darker small fibrils. The caps were somewhat viscid. The margin is blackened in the older individuals. The photo looks a little oranger than the mushroom in hand. The mature caps I measured were 65cm, 54, 52, and 50cm in diameter. The young caps are reminiscent of the shape of a Russula. The gills are white with brown stains or flecks. The stem is light brown with darker lengthwise lines, kind of fibrous looking.

It took a couple of trys to identify this one. It keyed to Tricholoma stans in the PNW key, mostly because I bypassed T. pessundtum because the gill margins didn't have the dark edge. T. stans isn't documented in the PNW or in California, so I was feeling a bit dubious. In the key to Tricholoma at the Mushroom expert site, it keyed to T. pessundtum which is documented in the PNW. Arora says that it should be avoided unless one wants to spend the night violently ill. I'm content to eat king boletes and hedgehogs.

The last one didn't come from the park but was a left over from the insect collecting earlier in the week. It was growing on the ground in the young growth forest (Pine, Hemlock, Spruce etc) off the lower trail of Gavan Trail.

Cordyceps is an obligate parasite of either arthropods or other fungi, in the case of C. ophioglossoides of an Elaphomyces (deer truffle). Unfortunately, I didn't dig down far enough to see if there was a truffle below. Seems like I'm not the first person to pick this fungus without adequate digging.

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/cordyceps_ophioglossoides.html

Despite all of the emphasis on fungi and the required focus on the ground to find them, I have noticed a few birds lately. There are 6 nuthatches, chickadees, juncos and song sparrows working the feeder. One Golden-crowned sparrow was in the garden on Saturday. One day last week there were about 20 Black-legged Kittiwakes on the path to town. Friday I saw one Phalarope on the way to town and Fork-tailed Storm petrels on the way home. They were there on Saturday and today as well.

Boletes and others

Found 4 edible (that is not previously eaten) Boletus edulis last week. Three by the cemetary and one by SJ. The first three were somewhat eaten by fly or moth larvae, but the last one looked perfect. The larvae were pretty easy to remove by slicing the mushrooms and soaking them briefly in salty water. I'm not particularly sensitive to the idea of insects in my boletes, so I ate them and feed them to guests. I gave the fourth one to a group of Elderhostel folks to whom I gave a talk. They were particularly nervous about eating mushrooms since one of the company had a relative who required a new liver because of misidentification. Hopefully, the bolete left them with a more positive impression.



Also found Suillus fuscotomentosus in the muskeg near where we collected samples for the Mt. Edgecumbe projects. This species lacks a veil, the stipe is similar in color to the cap with dark brown punctuate fibers. The stipe is slight larger at the base than at the apex.
The cap is yellowish (#67 brillant OrangeYellow) with tufts of dark brown fibers. The diameter of the cap of the ones I saw was up to 5 inches (the one in the photo is 6.5 cm). It doesn't have a particular odor. The spore print is olive brown. What seperates this species of Suillus from a similar species (tomentosus) is that it does not stain blue when bruised.


This one is allegedly edible, however Arora says that it isn't particularly palatable.

Found Suillus tomentosus under the pines by the Mt. Edgecumbe High School Gym. It looked very similar in color, shape and size but stained blue when bruised. Despite this blue staining, this one is supposed to be edible, but not palatable.

Also under the pine tree at the gym was Suillus brevipes. A much tidier looking bolete. The cap was a warm light brown and the pores bright yellow. No blue staining.

Also collected a much larger (10 cm) Chalciporus piperatus than I usually find. It was more of a medium yellow brown than the red-brown that is typical. It was also much more irregular in shape than the smaller ones. The flesh of the cap was pale yellow to white. The stipe was bright yellow at base as is typcial. The stipe flesh is also yellow. The stipe was narrow for theLess than 1cm across and about 5 cm long. kind of mishapen. Because it was so different from what I usually see, I was compelled to check more characters. Yes, I had to taste it and was very hot.

The Leccinum scabrum were fruiting at St. Peter's church yard under the birch.


Russula emetica is another one I see every year, but still felt compelled to taste it (very hot), look at the spore color (white) and key it out. This one was growing in scrubby hemlock forest with Lysichiton in the understory near the bench muskeg off the Indian River trail.

Tom Volk had this to say about identification of Russula emetica "Even if you find a red Russula and think it's R. emetica, you're probably wrong." There is a longer explanation of the issues regarding identifying Russulas in general at both his post on R. emetica and on the Mushroom Expert, both seem to agree that one should treat all identifications as tentative. http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/sep2004.html

Collected a few mushrooms from the cedar dominated forest west of the Gavan Hill trail. There were several species that I hadn't noticed previously (yes, I've been sleep walking for years).

Chroogomphus vinicolor: I've found a number of Chroogomphus tomentosus, but never this species, but I haven't spent alot of time looking for fungi in cedar dominated sites. Cedar is not an ectomycorrhizal species, so the fungi that I've spent most of my time looking for are not present.

The overall size and shape are similar to C. tomentosus, but the color is darker and red brown. It kind of had a dark red wine sort of color to it, but I would have poured the wine through a filter before I drank it. The cap was smooth and viscid when wet, and dried to a nice sheen. The gills are distant and decurrant. This mushroom is most reliably differentiated from a similar species (C. rutilis more properly known as C. ochraceous) by the thick walled cystidia. Happily this feature was quite distinct.
Conifer forest, particularly those with Pine is where this species is said to grow in the PNW. I found it growing in a scrubby mixed conifer (Cedar, Western Hemlock) forest near a muskeg. There was Lysichiton americanum in the understory. There were several individuals in the area, growing on the ground. C. vinicolor is mycorrhizal. This species is edible, but these were too far gone to tempt me. I'm fairly certain that all Chroogomphus turn purple when cooked , but I'm not sure which pigment is responsible, what was interesting was that some of the ones I brought home developed purple stains after a couple of days. Decompostion?http://www.svims.ca/council/Gomphi.htm

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/chroogomphus_vinicolor.html

The next two species gave me a bit of grief. One because I was impatient and the other because I haven't yet found a great species match. They are both members of the Entolomataceae, with pink spores and Omphaloid stature, more apparent in one (gray/brown) than the other. Both were growing on the ground near cedar.

Leptonia serrulata: This should have been easy. It has a black or purple black, cap about 2 cm across, the gills were distant and white with a very striking black edge. The stem was gray/purple/black, slender about 3.5cm long.
This one drove me a little crazy and is a fine example of why one should make a spore print before proceeding with a new species. When I first looked at it, I didn’t notice the slight omphaloid stature and decided it was a Mycena. Oh my, that was kind of a frustrating error. Even looked at the spores and decided that perhaps a Mycena could have slightly angular/nodulose spores. Kept trying all sorts of keys and descriptions and just couldn’t cram it into any species. Gave up and went to sleep in the hope that it would all make sense in the morning. Indeed it did, the pink spore print was quite useful.

Leptonia in CA “fond of fruiting under fern fronds in redwood duff” In the PNW “frequent under alder and western red cedar”. There were two growing on the ground on a vertical eroded edge near the base of a Yellow Cedar.

The other species of Leptonia was less distinct. The cap was small, 1.2 cm , closest to gray/yellow/brown, with distinct umbo, cap flesh thin and white. The margin was distinctly striate. The gills were white, widely spaced and waxy, somewhat decurrent, the stipe whitish gray, 2mm wide, 5cm tall.

It keyed to Leptonia undulatella in Arora. I don't have a good description of this species, so I'm less than certain of its identity.

Lepiota magnispora (saprophyte): This is new species for me, in fact I don't remember finding a Lepiota in the "wild" up here before. The most similar mushrooms are the yellow sometimes found on soil in house plants. This particular Lepiota was growing on cedar and seemed to be attached to dead wood in a notch near the base of a pair of trees growing very close to one another. Lepiota wasn't on Hennon's list of cedar fungi.

In "Mushrooms Demystified" this keys out to Lepiota clypeolaria, I was happy with that, Arora mentions that clypeolaria probably represents a collective species, so what else is new? However looking at the description of and commentary about L. cypeolaria at the Mushroom Expert site, made me a bit less certain about the identification. Had to turn to the microscope to positively identify this species. The spores are quite long with a small hooked beak. This species is also supposed to have brighter colors and a more distinct "eye" in the center of the cap.

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/lepiota_magnispora.html

http://www.svims.ca/council/Lepiota.htm

Macrotyphyla juncea: also known as Fairy Hair. It is a very slender light colored slender fungus less than 2 inches tall and probably around a millimeter or two wide. They were growing on dead cedar foliage. They were quite abundant once one's eye was oriented to their overall look. Basically they looked like thick threads sticking up from the duff. http://www.mykoweb.com/CAF/species/Macrotyphula_juncea.html

Also noticed Russula bicolor and Russula fragilis in the woods.

The Cortinarius on left was growing closer to the trail. The cap is quite viscid with a distinctive color pattern. The veil fibrils are noticable on the stem. The spores were bright rusty brown, so I'm content with calling it a Cortinarius, but admit that it could be a Hebeloma.

On the way back to UAS picked a Russula from the roadside under the spruce and alders near the ramp. THe spore print is quite yellow and the taste intensely hot. It keyed to Russula queletii in the PNW key. The description from PNW reads:

CAP 4-10 cm, purplish red, wine purple, brownish violet, usually fairly dark, drying pruinose, fleshy, peeling 1/2 to 2/3, striate only in age; flesh white. ODOR pleasant. TASTE very hot. GILLS cream, subdecurrent, close. STEM strong red or purplish. SPORE PRINT cream to light yellow: HABITAT conifers.

The remarks section was kind of amusing, I translated the following to mean that we included this information to comfort you poor fools who indulge in Russula identification.

REMARKS " we have included the descriptions to comfort the many who will find purple capped, red or purple-stemmed, hot-tasting Russulas with creamy spores."

A few more Fungi

Thursday the 4th was the third class of the mushroom identification workshop, so had a good reason to go collecting instead of spending the entire day in the lab packing biology lab kits.

Collected along the lower part of Gavan trail, the cemetary, Starrigavan, Totem park and Halibut pt rec. area. Didn't spend much time at any spot, because I wanted to see what sort of variety of fungi were available and I had limited time available.

Found Lactarius rufus along the Gavan trail, just townward of the small almost fen-like muskeg with the domestic Spiraea. It looked a bit larger than what I had seen previously, so I foolishly tasted it. Suffice it to say that it was intensely hot and peppery.

The mushrooms were less abundant than the last time I looked along the trail. Most of the Russulas and Lactarius were either too far gone or too immature. I did pick up a very large Cortinarius. The rusty brown spore print was about 4 inches in diameter. The stem was fairly even in thickness and had a few rusty colored fibrils just above the middle. The cap was somewhat viscid, but the stem was not. I haven't come up with a satisfactory species name yet for this one.

Found several Clitopilus prunulus in the grass near the Sitka spruce lining the cemetary road. They seem to be pretty abundant this year. The compactness of this species when immature is striking. Okay, it isn't unusual for something young to be small, but still they were an interesting form.

Amanita muscaria, both yellow and red forms, were growing at the base of several Sitka Spruce along the west side of the cemetary.

Carried on the Starrigavan and HPR. Collected a selection of Russula, Lactarius deliciosus, a Cortinarius or two, Amanita vaginata, Hydnum umbilicatum, H. repandum, Pholiota flammans (HPR), and Coprinus atramentarius. The Coprinus was growing on the woodchips on the path near the parking lot at Mosquito Cove.

I had plenty to share with folks, but the class was significantlly enriched by the nice variety of fungi that Jen and Vicki brought to class. Vicki collected from Skagway and Jen locally.
Jen brought Helvella lacunosa, Leccinum scabrum, Hydnellum suavavolens, Pholiota flammans, and several Russula and Cortinarius spp.



Vicki brought in Hydnelllum peckii, Amanita muscaria (yellow), another Hydnaceae that I dried for later, a bright yellow Russula looking mushroom, Sarcodon imbrictus and Phaeolepiota aurea.

I've seen Sarcodon imbricatus in Kelp Bay and near Hidden Falls, but don't remember seeing it on the outside coast. Could be here though.
Rich Philips has collected Phaeolepiota aurea from Green Lake Rd. and I've found it in Kelp bay.


Phaeolepiota aurea



Sarcodon imbricatus

Bird watching from the house has been rather rewarding the last few days. The bird feeder has been visited by a Steller's jay, several chickadees, 3 nuthatches and a song sparrow. Robins, both juvenile and adults, Varied thrush, Ruby and Golden Crowned kinglets, a Sapsucker, juncos, Rufous hummers and Crossbills have been in the garden.

As of yesterday, I had seen two nuthatches at the feeder, today there were three visiting at the same time. One seems rounder and larger than the other two. It was also the one that held still enough that the photo was adequate. I sat out on the deck for about a half an hour listening and waiting for an opportunity to get a photo. Deleted most of them, nuthatches are highly mobile little birds and the autofocus on the camera isn't functional at the moment.

The chickadees and nuthatches weren't concerned enough about my presence and proximity (about 6ft) to avoid the feeder, but the Steller's jay did some serious squawking. The nuthatches were not too thrilled with the presence of the Steller's jay. They skittered up the trunk (pursued by the jay) and eventually flew off. The jay didn't follow them away from the feeder tree.

Although I haven't seen a warbler for the last couple of days, I'm not convinced that they are gone yet. Probably just not looking out the window at the right time.

As I'm writing this, the chickadees, jay and nuthatches are at the feeder and deck rail at the same time.

August 25

My teachers told me to avoid Cortinarius and Russula, for some reason I've choosen not to listen to them. The last couple of days, I've experienced the pain of living in a place with so many of these maddening fungi.

This started benignly enough, in fact I was being nice. Libby Stortz wasn't able to attend the class field trip on Saturday, so the two of us went for a short walk up Gavan Hill trail to look for mushrooms.

These are some of the mushrooms, I found with her and on a trip the next day that I've managed to beat my head against.

Yellow cap, gills and stem. Fading much lighter when dry. The spore print is white/cream. The gill trama is very parallel. No veils present. The gills aren't even vaguely waxy looking to me and the attachment is more adnate than decurrent. No cystidia found. The spores are attached at the end.

There is a distinct odor to the fresh mushrooms. The taste isn't bitter, in fact not much taste at all. Stem hollow with tough catilaginous rind. Seems like it might be Tricholoma sulphureum, but I'm not entirely convinced.

Cortinarius:
This species keys out to C. bicolor in the unfortunately out of date (withdrawn in fact) key to Cortinarius published by the Pacific Northwest Mycological Society. It may be a synonym of C. cageii, but then again may still be a valid taxa.
In the woods it had a brown cap with a white margin. It wasn't viscid. The stem was purple or lilac.

The spore print was appropriately rusty brown, the spores themselves were slightly rough. What was remarkable about this species was how the color changed as it dried (hygrophanous). The cap is almost lilac colored or maybe lilac brown. The light color comes from a kind of "frost" over the surface.

In Arora, this fungus keys out to C. adustus and C. impennis neither described individually, but included in the comments section of C. evernius. This species seems to be one of several medium sized, hygrophanous, purple or lilac tinted species of Cortinarius in the subgenus Telamonia.

Cortinarius: orange brown, kind of looks like a Russula, but has brown spores. The resemblance to a Russula was accentuated by the flaring of the older individuals and the substantial bulk of the mushrooms. The stipe had a bulbous base. The fungus wasn't viscid, nor did the color change on drying. I looked at sections of the gills, the edge was packed with cystidia. Many of which have a narrow, bottle type of tip. Managed to cut one section thin enough to see the origin of the cystidia in the gill trama. The smudges in the background are the spores.

I haven't quite decided what to call this one. Okay, I'm pretty sure it is a Cortinarius, but am almost ready to give up on that idea as well.

I posted this photo on Mushroom Observer and Cortinarius rubicundulus was suggested as a possibility. Looking back in Arora's key, I bypassed this species because it didn't seem to fit the bruising requirements.

Fortunately for my sanity, one of the mushroooms I found was readily identifiable, at least I could more easily convince myself that I was on the right track.

Lactarius kaufmanii var kaufmanii: seems to demonstrate the concept of viscid quite well. The slime was very thick. Once dry the surface of the cap looked varnished.

The last mushrom that has been driving me a bit crazy is this Russula. It seems to be in the group of Russulas that are very hot to the taste, don't want to give up their spores and stain pretty readily. The cuticle didn't peel away from the cap as easily as the typical Russula and the margin was not striate. The mushroom was cream to light tan colored or maybe a light yellow when growing undisturbed in the woods. It wasn't viscid.
I tried to key this creature out in section Compactae because of the staining reaction and the difficulty in peeling the cuticle, but that doesn't seem to be working well either.

Fortunately for me, it is early in the season and I might be lucky enough to find these creatures again and give it another try.

On a happier note; the garden was full of birds this morning. Robins, Varied Thrush, Swainson's Thrush, Ruby crowned kinglet, Townsend's, Orange-crowned and Wilson's warbler, Winter wren, Chestnut backed chickadees, Juncos, Song sparrow and I heard a Nuthatch and a woodpecker of some sort. This evening I saw the first ever Steller's Jay at the bird feeder. I can't say that they haven't been around, but I haven't seen one. This one was eating the seed off the deck rail and from the tube feeder.