Meeting February 4

The next meeting will be on Monday, February 4, in Room 101 at the Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park.  Our speaker will be Gary Lincoff.

Gary is a well-known mushroom author, teacher, tour leader and past president of the North American Mycological Association. His books include one of the most widely used mushroom field guides in North America, the Audubon Field Guide to North American Mushrooms. He has also authored Toxic and Hallucinogenic Mushroom Poisoning and other books.  One of the few professional mycologists without a degree in mycology, he is a lecturer at the New York Botanical Gardens.

Pre-Meeting Dinner

Our usual custom of treating the speaker to dinner will be observed in modified form.  We will hold the dinner on Sunday, February 3^rd.  It will be at Kings Fish House in Mission Valley.
825 Camino De La Reina
San Diego, CA 92108
Tel. (619) 574-1230
kingsseafood.com/restaurants.html

Meet at the restaurant at 6 PM.

Pre-meeting Foray

We will take our guest speaker on a foray on Sunday, February 3^rd, at Dos Picos County Park near Ramona.

Meet in the parking lot at 10 AM.  There is a $3.00 parking fee.

The park entrance is on Mussey Grade Road.  From San Diego, go East via I-8 to highway 67 north.  Watch for Mussey Grade on the right as you approach Ramona.  From North County, go to Ramona and go south on 67 to Mussey Grade on your left.

Fungus Fair February 17

The Mushroom Fair is set for February 17. It is our largest annual event, with the focus on educating the public about fungi.

The whole fair depends on member participation—without you, there is no fair! It is a great way to deepen your knowledge and be energized by the world of mushrooms; but there is a lot of work to do as well, creating the displays. Even part of a day’s helping will make a difference, so please volunteer!

The new display approach using various baskets to place the mushrooms on exhibit worked very well, so we will do it again this year. If you have any spare baskets knocking about that you’d like to part with, roughly 4 to 8 inches and with or without handles, please bring them to the February meeting or the fair setup on the evening of the 16th.

Mushroom Weather

 Rain-dampened earth is the perfect condition for the fungal blossoms, which are in abundance now.

By Joseph Serna, from the Daily Pilot, Newport Beach, CA

It’s like an Easter egg hunt for grown-ups.

That may not be the first thing that comes to mind when staring at the mud-caked cap of a four-inch tall fungal blossom, but then again, you’ve never gone on a mushroom walk with wildlife biologist Gregg Miller.

Every winter when the weather is right, Miller’s hunting ground at the Environmental Nature Center in Newport Beach comes to life. Blanketed within the rain-dampened earth, endless tentacles of fungus vein through the center. When the conditions are perfect, as Miller says it is now, the fungus produces a fascinating fruit, more commonly referred to as a mushroom.

“This recent rain that we’ve had over this weekend and these past days bodes really well for the environmental nature center,” Miller said. “To me, this is wonderful weather. I think we’ll see a lot of mushrooms fruiting.”

Fruiting, yes. Finding? Perhaps.

The center’s paths tracing through the trees means mushroom hunters will have to have keen eyes. Maybe bringing a child along would help, Miller said.

“They’re lower to the ground and they see better,” he said.

Miller has no problems getting his hands, feet or knees dirty to educate people about mushrooms. He’ll enthusiastically overturn rocks and sift through leaves and dirt to show people his passion.

Unlike plants such as poison oak, people don’t need to hesitate to touch a mushroom, he said.

“I drive the Los Angeles freeway system. I’m going to be afraid of some mushrooms?” he said.

Any kind of mushroom species could blossom out of the dirt, thanks to the center’s changing settings, Miller said.

“If you can see [the color] on the spectrum, a mushroom probably has it,” Miller said. “Mushrooms are as different from plants as you and I are from plants.”

They’re just as important as plants too, he said. Fungi seem to be earth’s own scavenger. The fungus can grow off nearly anything that needs to decompose, as long as it’s near moist ground. Without them, Miller said, “the world would be full of orange peels.”

Miller hosts mushroom walks at the Environmental Nature Center, 1601 E. 16th Street in Newport Beach. For more information, call (949) 645-8489.

Collecting for the Fair

(Adapted from the FFSC Web Site, with thanks to the FFSC)

Everyone is encouraged to collect specimens for the fair. Please bring your collections to the Casa Del Prado on Saturday evening prior to the fair for identification and display setup. As a last resort, you may bring them in on Sunday morning, but that puts a lot of stress on the identification team.

Field Note Recording

Please take field notes when collecting specimens for the fair. Taking Field Notes When Collecting Fungi for Study Is Easier Than You Think.

When out on FFSC forays we’ve observed many different collecting methods. These range from simply loading all mushrooms into a bag or basket in a jumbled mass to careful segregation of collections and protection of small or delicate species. Some people take notes, others don’t.

When collecting for this year’s Fungus Fair we ask that you be among the latter. We also ask that you take notes in the form of a voucher slip. First you may ask, “What is a voucher slip?” A voucher slip is a small form that has areas to enter information about the fungus you are collecting. This information is focused on where and when the fungus is found and can be as simple as the foray location, date and fungus name. This is of limited use if you do not know the name of your fungus. Other useful information found on a voucher slip includes; habitat, growth habit, odor when fresh, staining reactions and any other information that will help in identifying an unknown fungus using a set of keys.

Voucher slips are included in this issue, and are also available on our web site. Print up several of the slips and try them this year, for the fair and other forays. Modify them as you wish to meet your collecting and identification needs. Additional notes may be written on the back of the slip.

Let’s face it, when we collect many species of fungi for study it can  sometimes be challenging to recall if a collection was growing with live oak or tanoak, pine or Douglas fir. The voucher slip is a memory aid, is quick to fill out and drop into the collecting baggie. This is especially helpful when collecting for the Fungus Fair since many of the fungi will be identified by someone other than the collector.

A note on collecting for identification, remember to always collect the entire fruit body, this may require digging down several inches (sometimes over a foot) in order to get the entire base of a fungus like Caulorhiza umbonata, the redwood rooter, which can have a rooting base that extends a foot or more into the ground. Also collect a range of ages, from young buttons to mature fruit bodies, you can leave the rotters. Keep your collections separate, in waxed or paper bags, never use plastic bags as they accelerate ageing and decomposition. If you are not sure about the vegetative habitat description, then, collecting a few pieces of ground leaf litter around the specimen to add to your sample bag will help later identification of the habitat of your collection.

For more information on field notes and macroscopic features to note see Arora, Mushrooms Demystified, 1986, pp. 13-19.

Save Those Rotten Boletes

Remember that Greg Douhan at UC Riverside is looking for specimens of boletes infected with Hypomyces.  If they are not too far gone to travel, bring them in with a voucher slip, and we will see that they get to Greg for his research.

Voucher Slips

Voucher slips in .pdf and Excell format are available on the SDMS web site at SDMYCO.org.  Click on Habit, and look for the link to the SDNHM Collection Project.

More Notes on Collecting Specimens for Display

When collecting specimens for the mushroom fair, remember that the purpose is to gather specimens for display, not for the pot or the study bench.   Thus, bring in entire specimens, preferably with a few inches all around of the substrate. If it's easy to do, gather the specimen(s) with some of the soil and/or leaves, using a trowel or a sturdy knife.  If the mushroom is growing on wood, bring all or part of the wood if possible.  Bring in some of the duff where the mushroom is growing (oak leaves, pine needles, or whatever) to place under it on the display table.

Place each specimen in a container, taking care to preserve its natural beauty and looks.  Plastic food containers work well if uncovered.  You may want to cushion the mushroom with the duff to keep it from bouncing around.

Keep each species in a separate container, or place each in a separate small bag.  This will help speed up the sorting for display, and minimize the amount of handling required.  If you know the species, write it on the outside of the bag.  Small waxed or brown paper lunch bags work well if the mushrooms are not too wet.  Do not use plastic bags.

Unless they grow in bunches, do not collect more than a few specimens.  Try to get specimens in different stages of development but avoid those that are too ripe to make it by fair time.

Handle the mushrooms as little as possible, and try not to damage or destroy features that are important to identification.  It is best to handle the mushrooms by the edge of the cap rather than the stalk, because there are often fragile features on the stalk like scales, fibers, and veil remnants that help in identification.

Take along some paper and a pencil to make notes on where each species was found, what trees were nearby, and any other information that might help identify the mushroom.

Throughout, think display!

What’s Cooking?

Non-fungal food this month.  By popular demand, here is the recipe for the (locally) famous cookies that Joanne Moore brings to our events.

Graham Cracker Cookies

2 sticks butter (no substitutes)
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup chopped pecans
½ cup shredded coconut

Melt butter in pan, add sugar.  Bring to a boil and cook 3 minutes exactly. Remove from heat, add nuts and coconut.

Place graham crackers close together on greased jelly roll pan 10 x 15 inch.  Syrup will run off the edge if you use a cookie sheet.

Spread hot mixture over crackers quickly before it hardens.

Bake at 350˚ for 10 minutes exactly.

Cut crackers in half and remove while still warm.

Volunteer Needed

Several SDMS members do not have email.  They would appreciate being notified by phone when a foray is planned.  We need a volunteer who is willing to watch for the Foray Flash emails, and pass the word along by phone to a couple of members.  To volunteer, contact Dave.

Web Special

This month, there will be a new feature on our web site.  I will be posting links to mushroom news that I found while looking for material, but would not fit into the newsletter.

So far I have an article on mushroom hunting in Israel, and another on the Point Reyes Fungus Fair.

If you run across interesting items, send me links to add.

Dave Grubb

DavidGrubb at sbcglobal dot net

Coming Events

LAMS Mushroom Fair

Sunday, February 10, 10 AM – 4 PM

You can warm up for our fair by attending the LAMS mushroom fair the week before.  It will be held at the Los Angeles County Arboretum, 301 North Baldwin Ave, Arcadia.

You can find more information, including a map, on the LAMS web site at www.lamushrooms.org

SDMS Mushroom Fair

Sunday, February 17,

10:30 AM -3:30 PM.

Setup Saturday, 5:00 PM

Mark your calendar and plan to help.  Forays on Saturday, setup Saturday evening, and Fair all day Sunday.

March Meeting

Monday, March 3^rd, Casa Del Prado, Balboa Park, 6:30 PM

Speaker Nancy Mladenoff, topic Mushrooms In Contemporary Art

Nancy Mladenoff is a professor of art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Her art practice incorporates painting, photography and installation. Recent work has revolved around painting on mushrooms and installing small sculptural forms in the vicinity of mushrooms and photographing the results. Solo exhibitions include Nature and Other Excuses at the Wendy Cooper Gallery in Chicago and New Photographs at the Cultural Exchange Station in Tabor, Czech Republic and Lademoen Kusnstnerverksteder in Trondheim, Norway. She has participated in recent group exhibitions in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Germany and the UK.

Mladenoff’s lecture, Mushrooms in Contemporary Art, will address her own work and the artwork of other contemporary artists who use mushrooms as subject matter in their work.

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SDMS Information