by Beth Sullivan
Glistening purple gems
As we wind
down summer and gardens are going to fruit and seeds, it is also the season of
the Mushroom! I can never get through
this season without renewing my sense of wonder at the variety and resiliency
of these organisms. Fungi fans are seeing the amazing results of all the rains
we have had through the summer and early fall. These are the perfect conditions
for the explosion of mushrooms we are seeing now.
As most
people know, there are mushrooms that are considered edible and very desirable
delicacies. There are also a huge number that are inedible and many that are
actually deadly. Mushroom hunting for
food is to be undertaken only by the knowledgeable. The rest of us can hunt with our cameras.
Look around
your yard even, there are numerous small capped mushrooms that pop up after a
rain. In the darker, damper woods, they
are present on the forest floor and on dead wood stumps throughout the late
summer and early fall.
Fungi are in
a Kingdom of their own. They are not plants at all, and surely they are not
animals, but you would be surprised at some of their characteristics. They do not have true roots, or a vascular
system, or flowers and seeds. They contain no chlorophyll so are unable to make
their own “food” utilizing nutrients and sunlight. Have you noticed there are
no real GREEN mushrooms? They rely on
obtaining their nutrients from the decay process that they are part of on the
forest floor, within all the dead plant material that is present there. They
absorb their food through this process, rather than eating it or making it. Mushrooms are actually the visible, spore
producing bodies of a largely underground network of rhizome threads that
comprise a fungus. The spread of the
rhizomes extends great distances but only one or two mushrooms may emerge. In
other cases, many will pop up in the same area. 
Like fairy umbrellas
Some are very specific, dependent for their
survival on certain species of living trees, dead trees, or in soil with very
narrow ranges of pH, soil acidity. But here’s
a fun fact: the outer tough skin of many
mushrooms is made of Chitin, which is the same material as the shells of lobsters
and crabs! Strange organisms.
Along with a
wide variation in color, they also take many forms: the familiar umbrella,
ruffles, shelves, “turkey tails” and puffballs.
If you have ever come upon a solid white ball on your lawn and think
“Golf ball”, experiment a little. A firm young puffball will be white all the
way through and have a pleasing earthy smell. But wait a few weeks and find a
puffball that has become browner with age. A touch with your toe or a flick of
the finger will make it “puff”, explode with fine black dust, which is all the
spores contained within. All mushrooms reproduce by releasing dusty spores and
the color and patterns of those spores, when collected and inspected, are
essential identification traits. 
They are called turkey tails for
a good reason!
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| Have a child draw them in a sketch book - by Emerson |
Please keep
your eyes open for some beautiful, colorful and very interesting inhabitants of
the forest floor. Avoid having children
touch them and instruct them about proper caution. A good idea would be to use
your camera or a sketch pad to enjoy them!
Have the kids draw them too.
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| Witch's Butter |
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| Amanitas have bumps on their top and are deadly. |
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| What happens when a mushroom gets old? It gets moldy! |
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| Puffball-in-Aspic Yuck Jelly! |
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