Holiday Cookie Bash, 2006
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
BULLETIN OF THE PUGET SOUND MYCOLOGICAL SOCIETY Number 428 January 2007 Holiday Cookie Bash, 2006 page 1 MEMBERSHIP MEETING Spore Prints Tuesday, January 9, 2007, at 7:30 PM at the Center for Urban Horticulture, 3501 NE 41st Street, Seattle is published monthly, September through June by the Our speaker for January is Daniel Winkler, and his topic will be PUGET SOUND MYCOLOGICAL SOCIETY “The Mushrooming Fungi Markets in Tibet.” Center for Urban Horticulture, Box 354115 University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195 For centuries, Tibetans have collected and (206) 522-6031 http://www.psms.org traded mushrooms. Improved communication User name: Password: and the commoditization of natural resources have caused an astounding mushrooming of OFFICERS: Patrice Benson, President the fungus industry. The market is dominated Joanne Young, Vice President John Goldman, Treasurer by the caterpillar fungus “yartsa gunbu” Dennis Oliver, Secretary (Cordyceps sinensis), matsutake (Tricholoma matsutake), and morels (Morchella spp.). An TRUSTEES: Molly Bernstein, Colleen Compton, Amanita Marilyn Droege, Steve Haynack, array of other mushrooms—such as , Armillaria, Auricularia, Boletus, Cantha- Younghee Lee, Jamie Notman, Dan Winkler Lynn Phillips, Carissa Thornock, rellus, Ganoderma, Hericium, Lactarius, Doug Ward Leccinum, Paxillus, Ramaria, Rozites, Sarcodon, and Suillus—is Ron Post (Immed. Past Pres.) also economically important. ALTERNATE: Luis Felix Yartsa gunbu (Cordyceps sinensis) alone accounts for over 95% SCI. ADVISOR: Dr. Joseph F. Ammirati of the fungi market in Tibet. Currently it is the world’s most precious EDITOR: Agnes A. Sieger, 271 Harmony Lane, fungus at over $30,000/kg retail. In Tibet, it contributes 40% to Port Angeles, WA 98362 the rural cash income. Its contribution to the Gross Domestic [email protected] Product equals the whole secondary industry (manufacturing and Annual dues $25; full-time students $15 mining). Every year in spring, Tibetans move up to the grasslands to collect this elusive tiny medicinal fungus feeding on the larva of the ghost moth. Since 1998, I have been tracking yartsa gunbu— researching fungi markets, collection areas, and its importance for CALENDAR Tibetan people. Daniel Winkler, trained as a geographer and ecologist, works as Jan. 9 Membership Meeting, 7:30 PM, CUH researcher and consultant on environmental issues of the Tibetan Jan. 15 Board Meeting, 7:30 PM, CUH Plateau and Himalayas. He has published on forest ecology, Jan. 23 Spore Prints deadline traditional land-use practices, and medicinal plants and fungi. His Jan. 31 Lichen Class, 444 Hitchcock Hall, UW articles and photo essays are published on his website (www.daniel winkler.com). He lives in Kirkland, Washington, and has been a Feb. 4 Lichen Class Field Trip member of the Puget Sound Mycological Society since 1996. Feb. 7 Lichen Class, 444 Hitchcock Hall, UW Would persons with last names beginning with the letters A–L please bring refreshments for the social hour? 2007 LICHEN CLASS Dennis Oliver PSMS is pleased to announce that Dr. Katie MINNESOTA MUSHROOM POISONING Glew will be again offering a five-session Britt Bunyard, The Mycophile, lichen class (with the fifth session on the North American Mushroom Association, Nov./Dec. 2006 crustose lichens) this winter. The class will A tragic case of mushroom poisoning occurred this fall in Minne- begin on Wednesday, January 31, and run sota. The state Health Department there reports that seven members for the next four Wednesdays at Hitchcock of a Hmong community in the Twin Cities were hospitalized Hall (room 444) on the University of September 9 after eating poisonous mushrooms they picked in St. Washington campus. A field trip is planned Paul’s Keller-Phalen Regional Park. A 10-year-old girl died on for February 4, 2007, to collect specimens September 15; two others were still hospitalized in intensive care for class and to view lichens in their natural Dr. Glew as this issue went to press. All the other members of the family habitat. The class costs $45.00 and is limited to PSMS members. were recovering. Minnesota Mycological Society experts Ron Space constraints limit enrollment to 18 people. If interested please Spinosa and Anna Gerenday were called to the hospital to identify e-mail education@ psms.org (preferably) or leave a phone a specimen that was brought in with the patients. The mushrooms message at (206) 722–0691 if you do not have e-mail. were confirmed to be the Eastern American Destroying Angel Dr. Katie Glew received her Ph.D. in Botany from the University (Amanita bisporigera), which can easily be mistaken for non- of Washington specializing in alpine lichens and their ecology. poisonous mushrooms, especially the paddy straw mushroom, She also directs the Seattle Lichen Guild. The suggested book for Volvariella volvacea, popular in Southeast Asian cuisine. Anna the class is McCune and Geiser’s Macrolichens of the Pacific recently told me that this case has kept her very busy, and she Northwest. This book, as well as other mushroom books, will be recently gave a presentation at a poison control center to help available for sale at the monthly PSMS membership meeting. educate the public on identification of poisonous mushrooms. page 2 NEW CASTLE FIELD TRIP Russ Kurtz white underside has many tiny holes, and inside these holes microscopic spores are produced. The spores float away on air October 28, 2006, was a bright sunny day, perfect for a field trip. currents and occasionally one of them lands on some exposed wood New Castle State Park is small with a nice beach and a large lawn or log and germinates. area surrounded by cottonwoods and some birches. The park has It is inside this wood where the action is taking place. Microscopic a big shelter with several large tables and benches. As usual, coffee, filaments of the fungus itself grow through the wood, producing tea, and cookies were available all day. enzymes which digest it. Unlike animals fungi digest their food Sixteen people signed in. Many were new members, some with outside their bodies, and then ingest the by-products of that children who were most eager to go mushrooming (and were very digestion. In the case of brown-rot fungi those by-products are good at finding the elusive fungi). Since the park is so small, the glucose. Cellulose is made of glucose, and these fungi have the area had been pretty well covered within an hour, so I recommended ability to extract that sugar and use it to build their own bodies, that those who wanted go either to Cougar or Tiger Mountain to including the big brackets. That sugar was originally made in the see what they could find. Mushrooms were identified from 9 AM to needles of the tree’s canopy by taking carbon dioxide from the air 3 PM. Twenty-one fungi were found: and water from the soil and combining them using the energy of sunlight. After the cellulose is decomposed, and made into fungus Armillaria mellea Hygrophoropsis aurantiacum Boletus chrysenteron tissue and not tree tissue, the brown stuff—lignin—is left behind, Lactarius sp.? eventually crumbling and entering the soil. Boletus scabrum Lepiota rhacodes Boletus zelleri Lycoperdon pyriforme But what are the white rots? Rotten wood that is white is being Cantharellus cibarius Mycena sp. attacked by fungi which consume both cellulose and lignin. When Clavaria vermicularis Naematoloma capnoides lignin is removed the cellulose fibers still remaining are no longer Clitocybe dilatata Naematoloma fasciculare cemented together, and now form soft stringy masses, very similar Coltricia cinnamomea Pleurotus porrigens to the pulp produced in pulp mills. Many of the pollutants from Coprinus lagopus Pluteus cervinus these mills are chemicals used to dissolve the lignin holding wood Cortinarius sp. Russula brevipes fibers together. White rot is essentially a natural pulping operation! Fomes pinicola Conversely, some pollutants are similar enough to lignin that white- I think a good time was had by all. Better hunting next year!! rot fungi will degrade them. Wood decaying fungi may be the recyclers of the forest, but they are slow recyclers. Trees make wood to last a long time, sometimes a very long time. If we look at an old growth forest from the point THE INTERNET OF THE FOREST Terry Taylor of view of nutrient cycling, the complete cycle for a very large, Mycofile, Vancouver Myco. Soc., Nov. 2006 very old tree can be over 2000 years. Not only can an ancient forest not be duplicated for many human lifetimes, but the processes Just as the human community has its Internet, so also does the involved in such forests are older than the ages of the oldest trees forest community have its Internet, and this Internet is created and within the forest. The largest trees in the coastal forest are Douglas maintained by the fungi. Fungi are the recyclers. They are also the fir and western redcedar. In some cases both these species can destroyers, as well as the sustainers of forest life. Without fungi attain ages greater than 1000 years. When large trees such as these there could be no forest, there would be no trees. blow down it takes a long time for the logs to decay, especially the Let us first consider the recyclers. Without the recyclers dead cedar, which contains large amounts of decay-resistant chemicals. leaves, branches and tree trunks would gradually build up on the About 500 years is probably required to return the log to the soil. forest floor. If not for the recyclers these materials could not decay, However, it is mostly the cellulose which has been removed by and their constituents would not become available for succeeding this process. Much of the lignin still remains. Look at the ground generations of organisms. Decomposition is caused by fungi and in a conifer forest and you will see it tends be a rusty brown.