Meeting April 4^th, 6:30 pm

Talk: Mushrooms of the White Mountains

Dennis Sharmahd

Dennis will talk about mushroom hunting in the White Mountains of Arizona.

The meeting will be at the usual meeting location, Room 101 at the Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park.

Pre-meeting Dinner

Unknown at this time, watch for an email.

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May Potluck Party

No meeting in May. Instead, we will have our traditional end-of-season potluck party on May 2nd. The party will be at the home of Jean Leighton in Point Loma.

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Possible Morel Foray, May 6-8, 2011

With recent heavy snows in the San Bernardino Mountains, the conditions appear favorable for a large fruiting of morels and other spring fungi. Although it is impossible to GUARANTEE that this will be a good morel season, of course, the weather we have experienced so far is comparable to other years that have produced large morel fruitings.

From 1999 through 2003, and again in 2010, LAMS organized weekend morel forays at group camps in the San Bernardino Mountains in collaboration with the San Diego Mycological Society (SDMS). Although these forays were successful and very well-received by the participants, poor fruiting conditions in subsequent years made the feasibility of similar events unlikely. With a potentially good season in prospect, it may be time to reconsider a weekend morel foray and campout.

Here is a quick summary of the kind of event being considered based on earlier campouts.

The campout would be scheduled for Mother's Day weekend, May 6--8, 2011 (Fri-Sun). I realize that some people would prefer a different weekend, but long experience has shown that the second weekend in May is most often the peak of the very brief morel season in the San Bernardino Mountains. We would stay at a group camp (not a "campground") in Barton Flats in the San Bernardino Mountains with enclosed heated cabins, kitchen and dining hall. There will be cabins for couples and families as well as unaccompanied men and women. Lodging will be comfortable and clean, but it is not a five-star hotel. I have several such camps in mind, but will choose a specific one after assessing the level of interest in the campout. All camps considered for the foray will be THOROUGHLY inspected to ensure that their facilities are clean, in good repair and suitable for our foray. Meals from Friday dinner through Sunday lunch (six meals) will be included.

There will be guided forays to morel habitats on Saturday and on Sunday morning. We will also like to plan an entertaining and informative program for Saturday evening. The cost, including lodging for 2 nights, meals and forays is anticipated to be approximately $125-150 per person, if we can obtain a minimum number of participants (approximately 40). There will be an as-yet undetermined discount for children 4-12, and children under 4 will be free. As before, registration fees will be slightly more for participants who are not members of either LAMS or SDMS.

Please email me at cantharellus13@yahoo.com if you are "DEFINITELY interested" in participating in a weekend morel foray and campout on May 7-9, i.e. you will PROBABLY participate if such an event is offered. If you are "SOMEWHAT interested" you should also respond. Please indicate the approximate number of persons you expect to bring. Please do NOT email me to indicate that you are not interested.

If the level of interest is high enough, I will begin investigating the feasibility of a morel foray weekend and report back to those who have expressed interest.

ONE MORE THING---I will also need another SDMS member to help me plan and organize the campout and foray--again, please contact me if you would like to help create a weekend filled with fun, good friends and fungi. In particular, I need someone to serve as the foray registrar--someone who can accept the foray participant registrations, compile the list of participants and who will make sure that everyone gets all the directions and other information that they will need to participate. It is unlikely that I will stage the campout and foray again UNLESS I CAN GET SOME HELP. Please email me at
Steven Pencall, Field Trip Chairman
Los Angeles Mycological Society
http://www.lamushrooms.org

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Arizona White Mountains Foray - August 2002

To whet your appetite for the talk at the meeting, here is an article I wrote for the September 2002 Sparadic Press - David Grubb

Ten intrepid mushroomers, and one guest herbalist, made the long hot trek to the White Mountains. I started out on Thursday evening, and went as far as Yuma before stopping for a late dinner and a stay at the Motel 6. I got back on the road on Friday before the heat was too bad, and slipped through Phoenix between the morning and noon rush hours. When Highway 60 dropped down to two lanes, I heaved a sigh of relief and started to enjoy the scenery. East of Phoenix, the massive rockpiles of the Superstition Mountains welcome you to the 9,000 foot climb into the old west.

The scenery changes from the rocks and cactus of the desert floor, through chaparral, into pinyon-juniper, ponderosa, and finally spruce-fir forest on the hundred-mile climb. The mostly uphill ride is interrupted by a dive into the Salt River canyon, where you can see millions of years of sedimentary rocks exposed in the canyon walls.

Along the Southeast edge of the burn from the Rodeo fire in July, the forest was already greening back up. The areas I saw mostly had healthy mature trees, no underbrush, and a layer of fresh green plants on the ground.

I had made a reservation at the Molly Butler Lodge in Greer. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Greer has no gas station, no fast food joints, no 7-11, and almost no neon lights aside from a beer sign or two in the bar of the lodge. The Molly Butler started out as a ranch house and bunkhouse, and became a lodge before there was a paved road to Greer. It has a decent dining room, and the guest rooms are small but comfortable. I got checked in, and went out to explore the town. It did not take long. One street, a few lodges, an antique store, some rental cabins and vacation homes, lots of pine trees, and a meadow with a little stream running through it. I drove to the end of town and walked into big woods along the stream. The duff was damp, there were puddles along the trail, and wildflowers were blooming everywhere. I saw five species of mushrooms in five minutes, so I knew we had come to the right place, and maybe even at the right time.

Saturday morning we all gathered at the Big Lake visitor center. When I arrived, I found Paul and Yolanda cooking breakfast, including some fresh mushrooms. Les rolled in from an early scouting mission in the woods, and gradually the group gathered. Some confusion about Mountain vs. Pacific time stretched out the arrivals. While we waited, we swapped stories about what we had seen so far. Les and Dennis had arrived on Thursday, and had already eaten some specimens, including two examples of Amanita caesarea, so we did not get to see those.

We hunted the area around the lake for the rest of the morning, with some success. There were a good variety of species, but not a lot of anything. Later we moved on to several wooded areas that looked promising. The forest was mixed conifer (spruce, fir, and ponderosa pine) with some aspens. There were plenty of mushrooms, but not a lot of good edibles. At one spot along the road, Paul Maschka and I spotted a flash of red and pulled over to investigate. It was the most photogenic find of the day, several groups of Amanita muscaria, including some large mature specimens and some young buttons.

As the afternoon turned to evening, I began to hear a cocktail calling to me from the lodge in Greer. After answering the call, and enjoying a good dinner, I relaxed for a while and listened to a local country band in the bar before retiring.

On Sunday, we gathered again at the Big Lake visitor center, looked at maps, and selected some more spots to try. We hunted several spots, then stopped at a trailhead by a stream for lunch. After lunch, some industrious foragers headed up the trail toward Mount Baldy. I poked around on the ridges along the stream, and found my biggest mushroom of the trip, a football-sized Sparassis crispa. Unfortunately, it was too old to be worth carrying back.

When the other foragers returned, we compared finds and tried to identify what we had. I collected a reasonably complete species list (see below), although there were a number of small or uninteresting specimens that went unidentified. As the group dispersed, I headed back to Greer for a nice steak dinner at another lodge, Cattle Kate’s, just down the street from the Molly Butler. While I ate, I admired the new but rustic-looking log construction, and the décor that included a stuffed bear, and some Elk heads on the wall.

On Monday, I went out looking for mushrooms near Greer before leaving to come home. I checked any place where there was a parking area, about 5 or 6 locations along the road. At each one, I found some Suillus granulatus, but most were dried out and wormy. At one of the parking areas at Greer Lakes, I found a cluster that was very fresh, and got a few that were worth taking home. On the trip back, I made two sightseeing stops, one at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, and another at the Casa Grande National Monument. The arboretum, near Superior, AZ, has a wonderful collection of desert trees and plants from around the world, displayed in a spectacular setting of rocky slopes and sandy washes. Casa Grande is the ruin of a large two-story building that was once the center of a Hohokam farming community in the desert. Extensive irrigation canals allowed them to farm the desert from about 1150 to 1450.

Even though the extended drought limited the quantity of mushrooms, I enjoyed the trip, and I am ready to go back next year. The White Mountain area is really beautiful, and was very green from the monsoon rains. Maybe next year we can coordinate our trip with the Arizona Mushroom club.

Species List - Arizona Foray 2002
Amanita caesarea
Amanita muscaria
Amanita pantherina
Boletus edulis
Clavariadelphus ligula
Clavicorona pyxidata
Coprinus comatus
Coprinus niveus
Cortinarius sp.
Hygrocybe sp.
Hygrophoropsis sp.
Inocybe sp.
Laccaria laccata
Leccinum insigne
Leccinum ponderosum
Lentinus ponderosus
Lenzites betulina
Lepiota josserandi
Paxillus involutus
Phaeolus schweinitzii
Phellinus ignarius
Phyllotopsis nidulans
Pleurotus ostreatus
Polyporus badius
Ramaria stricta
Russula xerampelina
Sparassis crispa
Suillus granulatus
Trametes versicolor

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2011 Fair Species List

Agaricus bernardii
Agaricus campestris
Agaricus sp.
Agaricus xanthodermus
Agrocybe dura
Agrocybe pediades
Agrocybe sp.
Amanita novinupta
Amanita ocreata
Amanita rubescens
Amanita velosa
Annulohypoxylon thousarianum
Astraeus hygrometricus
Astraeus pteridis
Battarrea phalloides
Boletus dryophilus
Cantharellus californicus
Chlorophyllum brunneum
Chlorophyllum rachodes
Clitocybe brunneocephala
Clitocybe sp.
Coprinellus micaceus
Coprinus comatus
Crepidotus herbarum
Cyathus olla
Exidia glandulosa
Ganoderma sp.
Gymnopilus sapineus
Gymnopilus sp.
Hebeloma crustiliniformis
Hebeloma sp.
Helvella compressa
Helvella lacunosa
Hygrophorus sordidus
Hygrophorus specious
Hericium erinaceus
Hericium ramosum
Hypomyces chrysospermus
Inocybe geophylla
Inocybe sp.
Lactarius argillaceifolius
Lactarius rufulus
Laetiporus gilbertsonii
Lepista nuda
Leratiomyces ceres
Leratiomyces percevalii
Leucopaxillus albissimus
Lysurus mokusin
Morchella rufobrunnea
Omphalotus olivescens
Peziza sp.
Pisolithus arrhizus
Phallus hadrianii
Pleurotus ostreatus
Polysporus decurrens
Psathyrella sp.
Rhizopogon sp.
Rhodocollybia sp.
Russula sp.
Schizophyllum commune
Scleroderma cepa
Stereum ostrea
Trametes hirsutus
Trametes versicolor
Tremella foliacea
Tremella mesenterica
Volvariella speciosa

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Mushroom News

• New Cordyceps species
• The technical version
• Truffle War in North Carolina
• First Report of Association Between Delphinium and Peziza repanda
• A day in the life of a field mycologist
• Flowers that mimic mushrooms
• Protecting trees from Sudden Oak Death
• Good To Eat - An Ancient Delicacy
• Not Good To Eat

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Mushroom Views

• Visit the MSSF Fair
• Another Mushroom Blog
• Blue Mushroom on Money (see the back of the bill)
• The original sky-blue mushroom
• Red Spore, Green Spore
• More Melanophyllum
• More Mycokey
• MycoBank - nomenclature databases

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Mushroom Events

NAMA Foray

The Western PA Mushroom Club is hosting the 2011 NAMA Dr. Richard Homola Memorial Foray on August 4-7 at Clarion University in Clarion, PA, just off Interstate 80. It is going to be an action packed foray with presentations, workshops, walks, and mycophagy.

We invite you to visit the NAMA website at www.namyco.org for more information.

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What's Cooking?

Fungi as Food

The Wild Table

Connie Green is known as "the mushroom lady". She has teamed up with chef Sarah Scott on a new book: The Wild Table - Seasonal Foraged Food and Recipes.

Hear her talk about it on KQED:

I am about two-thirds of the way through this book, reading a few pages at a time. The pictures are great, there is lots of information about a variety of wild foods, and some very tasty-looking recipes. There are recipes for many of the species of wild mushrooms found in California. Below is a sample, fairly similar to the Maitake Risotto I made for the Cook and Taste last month, but made with Black Trumpets, and finished with a little mascarpone (I wish I had thought of that!)

You need this book! And, it is only $26.40 at Amazon.

“Poor Man’s Truffle” Risotto

[Serves 4 to 6 ]

4 tablespoons (¹/2 stick) unsalted butter
¹/2 pound black trumpet mushrooms, cleaned
1¹/2 teaspoons kosher salt, or more to taste
2 garlic cloves, finely minced
4 cups Traditional Mushroom Stock (page 315)
2 shallots, finely minced
1¹/2 cups arborio or carnaroli rice
¹/2 cup dry white wine
¹/4 cup grated Parmesan
3 tablespoons mascarpone
Place 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. When the butter is melted and bubbling, add the mushrooms, tossing quickly to coat with the butter. Add ¹/2 teaspoon of the salt. Cook, stirring, as the mushrooms release their liquid. Continue cooking until the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms are dry. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Place the mushroom stock and 1 cup water in a large stockpot and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
Place a medium nonreactive saucepan over medium heat. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons butter. When the butter is melted and bubbling, add the shallots. Cook, stirring frequently, until the shallots are tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat evenly with the butter and shallots. Cook, stirring frequently, until the rice starts to turn translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the white wine. Cook, stirring constantly, until all the liquid is absorbed. Ladle in 1 cup mushroom stock. Add another ¹/2 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring continuously, until the liquid is absorbed and the rice mixture starts to feel heavy as you stir it. The more vigorously you stir, the more starches in the rice are released, creating a creamier texture.
Ladle in another 3 cups of stock and repeat the stirring after each cup. After the fourth addition of stock, add the mushrooms and the remaining ¹/2 teaspoon salt and continue stirring until most of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is just tender to the bite. The cooking time will be 30 to 35 minutes.
Stir in the Parmesan and the mascarpone. Taste for seasoning, adjust as desired, and serve immediately.

Recipes of the Month

Two sources for a "Recipe of the Month".
BAMS, and MAMS

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Fungi of the Month

Now there are two "Fungus of the Month" sites:
Tom Volk's long-running series at : http://tomvolkfungi.net/.
And a new one at: http://www.bayareamushrooms.org/mushroommonth/index.html.

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Liability Waiver Forms

Participation in SDMS Forays requires a signed liability waiver. To save time at the start of forays, you can download a form here, sign it, and turn it in with your membership renewal.

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SDMS Information