MushRumors Newsletter of the Northwest Mushroomers Association Volume 30, Issue 4 January 2020 Mushroom Review: A Dilly of a Year by Linda Magee The year of 2019 was a phenomenal year for the Northwest Mushroomers Association. First, we had record-breaking attendance at our annual show in October. Then at our season-ending Dilly Foray at Deception Pass State Park, nature gave us her take on a record-breaking show! The weather was perfect for foraging—cloudy with a quick mist now and again, occasional sun, a beautiful view of Bowman Bay, and a magnificent display of fungi across the land. Co-host Mark Johnson and I barely got the display/ identification tables ready as attendees began pouring into the shelter around 9:15 a.m. with loads of specimens collected between the parking lot and the shelter! We chatted, drank hot beverages, signed in, and organized the potluck contributions as more and more attendees arrived. Forty-five people signed in. We always miss a few Margaret Dilly, who started it all. Photo: Vince Biciunas people, or one person signs for the whole group, so I’m claiming we had at least 50 participants. the-season foray is a testament to their decades of work to develop mushroom identification materials Speaking of attendees and to inspire others to discover the wonderful wold We were thrilled that Margaret Dilly attended. The of fungi. Mark Johnson introduced Margaret to the Dilly Foray is named in honor of Margaret and Claude attendees and gave a brief summary of her long service Dilly who began the foray in the 1990s. This end-of- to our club. Continued next page You’re invited to the 2020 Survivors Banquet! The snows are gone (for now) and this “last of 2019” newsletter is finally out. Time to settle down for a good read . then get your mushroom caps on and save the date for our fabulous spring Survivors Banquet! Celebrate your mushroom community with good times, a lively raffle, and your best fungal potluck recipe. When? Saturday, March 21, 2020 What? NMA’s Survivors Banquet Where? Squalicum Yacht Club, Bellingham. Find details at northwestmushroomers.org/events-calendar or via an upcoming Google groups email. Some quick notes on notable finds … Christine Roberts believes we can now claim the record for the largest Russula fragilis on the West Coast: 10 cm in diameter and 10 cm in height. Christine took a Cortinarius collected at the foray home for further testing. She looked through Noah Siegel’s Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast, and thought it look like Cortinarius fuligineofulvis. After further testing with iodine on the stipe and comparing the cap texture and color (light hygrophanous brown with purple hints), she was convinced. On iNaturalist she found only five observations for this species on the West Coast, so this may have been the first observation for Washington. The feast and finale As always, we had a grand array of delicious food and drink and a wood-burning stove to hover around. It was more like grazing than sitting, though. This Tristan Woodsmith of Fungi Perfecti, our guest group wanted to ask questions, compare finds, take speaker at our November 14, 2019, meeting, came to photos, touch, smell, feel, and if acceptable, taste the the foray and brought his parents. Tristan helped many specimens. people identify their finds and excited the group by Our identifiers were the epitome of multitaskers. sharing a great photo of a huge matsutake he found at They moved from table to table, looking at books and Bowman Bay the day before. specimens, identifying finds, answering questions, There were many familiar faces and a crowd giving mini-lectures, and occasionally taking a sip of a of participants new to the club, all buzzing with drink or a mouthful of food. Thanks to everyone who excitement. And, of course, our identifiers—Fred worked to clean up the shelter in record time. Rhoades, Christine Roberts, and Harold Mead— arrived early, worked ceaselessly, and stayed until the last pieces of the identification papers were safely stored for transcription. And what came back At around10 a.m., Fred Rhoades gave an overview of collection protocol and forage locations. Attendees split up into large and small groups or went out individually to begin the serious foraging. Many took to higher trails, some stayed around the campgrounds, and a group went by car to Hoypus Point. According to the 2019 Dilly Species List, 144 species were identified at least to genus, beating last year’s list of 101 species. (To view this foray list and many others, including those from Swede Heaven and Lummi Island, consult northwestmushroomers.org/ species-lists.) 2 MushRumors December 2019 Ah, the gentle coastal woods where mushrooms fruit late into the fall season. Photo by Mark D. Johnson The forays of the future chaos, make the tasks of our ID’ers a little easier, and Peruse the species lists at the link mentioned above spend more time answering the questions of attendees. and familiarize yourself with the iNaturalist app. And to that end, if your were one of the many These are great ways to hone your ID skills during the eager foray participants, please consider channeling dark days of winter. some of that enthusiasm into being a foray co-host or At this foray we once again faced the welcome a foray ID assistant in 2020. We’ll have a calendar out logistical problem of too many mushrooms. We soon with the dates and some locations of forays and began with two ID tables, which quickly became person(s) to contact to volunteer. overcrowded. So, we had to co-opt another table to The NMA is only as strong as the efforts of our spread the specimens. We hope to implement new volunteers and only as rich as the gifts of Nature. See foray protocols next season to bring some order to the you at the next foray in mid-spring, on April 18, 2020! December 2019 MushRumors 3 Photos courtesy Lummi Island Heritage Trust Foray on Lummi Island Heritage Trust lands Waiting at the Gooseberry Point ferry terminal at 9:00 mushrooms to identify and label, and they set right to a.m., suddenly I saw Fred Rhoades striding towards it. Lobster mushrooms, Hypomyces lactifluorum, were my car to deliver the message that the ferry was marveled at, Coprinus species, Russulas, Ramaria, down, due to problems with the island dock. Emails, even a lavender Laccaria amethysteo-occidentalis phone messages, and texts swiftly passed each other were on display. When our Curry group found the on the grapevine as alternative plans were made, but orange blisters of “wolf’s blood” slime mold on a roll fortunately the ferry resumed within a half hour. We of bitter cherry bark, Buck punctured one and out met our hosts, the Lummi Island Heritage Trust, at oozed the bright orange “blood.” All of us found a their warm, comfortable building on the Otto Preserve great variety of mushrooms. We agreed we should (just one of their four holdings on the island) at 10:30. have given ourselves another half hour of collecting. Golden-leaved bigleaf maples surrounded the meadow While perusing the mushrooms laid out for us to and building, and the sun beamed down on us as 52 study, people helped themselves to the generous food people separated into groups to foray. everyone had brought. Linda Magee and her partner Before we dispersed, Fred reminded everyone Tom had brought a little stove on which they prepared to pick only one or two specimens of fungi, so we a few lobster mushroom samples to serve to those who wouldn’t have the piles of mushrooms as last year. Of wanted a taste. the three foray sites, most people stayed at the Otto As on previous years, the Lummi Island Heritage Preserve on the 3-plus miles of trails. Others drove Trust volunteers, especially Katie, Judy, and Mary the mile to Baker Preserve, a steep hike up Lummi had everything ready and left little for us to do but Mountain. The third group piled into two cars and identify the fungi. They had coffee made, cups and explored the Curry Preserve, three miles to the north, signage table out, and managed the potluck with our which is mainly meadow and altogether a different club members. We heartily appreciate their hospitality ecosystem than the other two. and willingness to host this annual event. Thank you When we returned at noon, Fred and Buck Lummi Island Heritage Trust! McAdoo found themselves with three tables of —Martha Dyck 4 MushRumors December 2019 More Lummi foray finds The October 26, 2019, foray at Lummi Island featured clear skies and uninterrupted fun. We all met at the Heritage Trust Lodge to hear the rules of the day. Rebecca Rettmer of the Lummi Trust Foundation held forth. There would be three separate forays within the land trust, to three separate areas, with a separate collecting table for each. The Curry was about a ten minute drive away. It was mostly fields with some woodland trails reemerging upon fields. The Otto consists of undulating woods all around the main lodge itself. The Baker was a stiff climb with many switchbacks through mixed woods. Fred Rhoades led the group on the Otto Gymnopus erythropus at the Curry Preserve. Photo: Buck Preserve. I assisted on the Curry Preserve, while others McAdoo took on the Baker. At the end of the day, the Otto mushrooms appeared all around the parking lot. clearly triumphed with 63 species. The Curry came in Martha pointed out that many were under maple, second with 39, and the Baker kicked in 25.