Learning the names, habitats and behaviors of local fungi in the Santa Cruz Mountains makes this writer want to know more.
By Bridget Lyons
Jan. 9, 2024—Fifteen of us are gathered in a UCSC parking lot clutching cellphone cameras and copies of Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast. We’re about to set out on one of the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History’s naturalist-led mushroom walks—only, as we’re about to find out, “walk” is a bit of a deceiving term. This year, there are so many mushrooms in the hills that very little walking is required to see them.
In fact, we take only three steps off of the asphalt before Marisa Gomez, the museum’s Community Education and Collaboration Manager, says, “Okay, I want you to stop where you are and count how many different kinds of fungus you see.” In one quick scan, I spot six. They range in size from a delicate three-inch tall Gomphidius to a cluster of short, wide Russulas.
Of course, I didn’t know either of these terms when I started the walk, nor did I know some of the other juicy mycological vocabulary I picked up over the course of the morning—terms like “stipe” (the stalk of the mushroom), “annulus” (the skirt of tissue that sometimes grows around the stipe), and “zonate” (a word used to describe a pattern of concentric circles on a mushroom’s cap). And that’s the point of these walks: to introduce the mushroom curious to the incredible variety of fungi in our local forests.
That introduction begins with the basics: Fungi are more like animals than plants, because, as one of the eight-year-olds in the group explains, they find nourishment by eating rather than by photosynthesizing. Gomez reminds us that mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungi, the reproductive elements of an organism that typically lives in the soil or on decaying matter. And their other elements, the dirt-bound, nutrient-absorbing mycorrhizae, have recently gained fame for their role in facilitating communication amongst trees—or serving as the “wood wide web,” as the other eight-year-old in our group points out. (“When,” I wonder—duly impressed, “did this become part of elementary school curriculum?”)
Our introduction also includes a discussion of mushroom picking ethics. For starters, it’s critical to know the rules and regulations of the land you’re exploring. This walk was conducted on UCSC property, where both picking and foraging are legal. This is not the case in the majority of California’s state parks; so make sure you “know before you go.” Gomez explains that establishing goals for your walk is also important. Are you there to gather edible mushrooms, ID as many species as possible, or take fun photos? The answer affects your behavior.
As we encounter different specimens, Gomez has us stop and evaluate whether or not they’re worth pulling from the ground. To identify a mushroom, it’s helpful to be able to hold it in your hand. You need to look under the cap to determine if it has gills (which look like fleshy ribs) or pores (which look like a spongy matrix). Breaking apart the mushroom tells you about its texture and lets you know if it bruises (turns blue) or bleeds (oozes a milky fluid). Because we’re on an educational adventure, we pick a lot of mushrooms—but once we’ve learned one type, we leave the rest of their relatives alone. And, we put the ones we’ve picked back in their original locations, caps up and gills or pores down.
One by one, we examine the mushrooms we find, arm ourselves with information about them, and dive into Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast. At 608 pages, it’s a somewhat intimidating tome. “You know what I do?” Gomez says as she holds up the book. “I start with the comments. They’re really accessible. Listen to this…” As she reads the description for a species of Lactarius, a type of mushroom that bleeds a cream-colored substance from its gills, we nod our heads. It sounds right—or close to right, anyway. I’m surprised by how quickly we narrowed the possibilities down to just a few pages. “Maybe I can do this after all,” I say to myself.
In the course of two hours, our walk has only taken us 200 yards into the woods. But we’ve identified about ten different types of mushrooms. I’ve taken photos of all of them, hoping they’ll help me the next time I’m out.
As we meander back to the parking lot, Gomez stops a few feet from the asphalt to offer us some final words of encouragement. Her eyes dart to the ground beneath a small tanbark oak, and she lets out an exclamation that’s something between a yelp of victory and a squeal of delight: “This is one of my favorites!” She gently plucks a bluish-black capped mushroom from the soil and passes it around. I wonder at this thing in my hand; I have never seen anything quite like it before. In addition to being crowned with a dark denim color and pattern, it has a white stipe and deeply furrowed gills. “It’s a Midnight entoloma,” she says, with more than a hint of pride in her voice. I’m guessing that her pride is a result of both having found this mushroom and having some knowledge of it.
I know that feeling well. There’s a special kind of connection that develops between us and other species when we can call them by their names. To get to that point, we have to know enough about their appearance, their habitats, and their behaviors to identify them. Then, we commit their names to memory and often end up caring about them in the process. I’ve experienced this with creatures ranging from anemones to antelope. I’ve always thought of mushrooms as being somehow more distant and less identifiable than other creatures. But now that they’re cropping up wherever I look, I find myself wanting to do the work necessary to know them better.
Thankfully, I’ve got some good questions to ask of my new trail companions—and some idea of what to do with the answers. With a little information, a big book, and a healthy dose of curiosity, I’m ready for the next post-rain “flush”!
Follow this link to the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History’s events and public programs page to find out about Fungus February, mushroom walks, the young-peoples’ Nature Club, tide-pool walks, and more.
Read "Santa Cruz Celebrates Mushroom Bloom at Historic Fungus Fair" on Hilltromper Silicon Valley.
Hilltromper is proud to be a sponsor of the 50th Annual Santa Cruz Fungus Fair, January 12-14,2024.
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