Have you ever thought about fungi?
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Diane Lynch
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The gnomes were excited to go see the mushrooms in the neighborhood. Photo: Diane Lynch
Since many of us were in biology classes, much has changed in the way living organisms are classified. Mushrooms have their own kingdom, Funga. They don't photosynthesize to make their own food. Interestingly, there are myriad ways that mushrooms can be shown to be phylogenetically closer to animals than plants, from cell structure to metabolic pathways.
The part we see above ground is called the fruiting body, cap, or flower, and it produces reproductive spores, which are microscopic and can only be seen in a spore print, which you can make by putting a cap (cutting the stem off) on a piece of white paper. Then, cover it overnight with a glass or plastic container so the spores stay in place.
This outcropping of LBJs (little brown jobs) has a sizable mycelium underground. Photo: Diane LynchThe most famous huge mycelium is in Oregon. Known as Humongous Fungus, it's a honey fungus (Armillaria ostoyae) that lives on dead or dying trees. It's about 2400 acres large and has been studied extensively by scientists for many years. Another is in an aspen grove in central Utah.
Most of the mushrooms we eat are grown in giant warehouses. The white grocery store mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, is the same as the little brown one called crimini, which is the same as a portobello. Oyster mushrooms, Pleurotus ostreatus, and other species are also easily cultivated.
This basket fungus, Clathrus ruber, hasn’t even finished emerging before the flies are there to carry the spores away! Photo: Diane LynchLike chanterelles and morels, Morchella esculenta has typically been wild foraged, but there's a recent article in the New York Times about a Danish growing operation that's successfully farming them, so maybe the price will come down. They are delicious to eat and available at farmer's markets in the spring months. A recent article in Scientific American about a food poisoning outbreak in Montana from undercooked morels should inform how you cook them.
There are plenty of toxic mushrooms out there, and some could kill you. Amanita phalloides is a common one, and it looks pretty innocuous. People end up in emergency rooms every year after having mistaken it for an edible. An estimated 95% of poisonings are mushrooms from the Amanita genus. The irony of the genus Amanita is that it also contains edibles as well as really beautiful species, such as Amanita muscaria, the so-called fairy tale mushroom or fly agaric.
Amanita muscaria are about the prettiest mushroom around. No wonder they’re called the fairy tale mushroom. Photo: Diane LynchThis short article barely scratches the surface of the fungi world. If you want to learn more about mushrooms, consider joining the Mycological Society of Marin, mycomarin.org. They often have speakers at the Mill Valley Library, member-only foraging trips with knowledgeable people who can identify mushrooms, and Wild in Marin, a fungus fair in January where you'll see hundreds of identified mushrooms. There is so much to learn and so much fun to be had!