Wild Mushrooms!

“Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom.” ~Thomas Carlyle

The mushrooms are calling, and I must go…

…with my grandson, Leo.

It’s wild mushroom season here in Alaska!

A mycologist once offered me a bite of a wild mushroom he ably identified as safe and edible. I popped it into my mouth and my throat constricted. I should have spit it out immediately but, trusting the expert, I ignored my body’s warning and swallowed it. Hours later I was sicker than the proverbial dog. I contacted the mycologist and he said every body reacts differently to mushrooms. Similar to an allergy, you can simply be intolerant to a certain type of edible mushroom.

I have long been a fungiphile, once considered pursuing a degree in mycology, and served as Mushroom Superintendent at the Tanana Valley Fair for many years. I can confidently identify a handful of species and have eaten puffballs, inky caps, meadow mushrooms and orange deliciouses with impunity and delight. I also know and admire the scarlet toadstool of fairytales and hookah-smoking caterpillars, the Amanita muscaria which is deemed poisonous at worst and hallucinogenic at best.

Although my youthful forays into organic hallucinogens included peyote buttons and psilocybin mushrooms, and my daughter is a psychedelic-assisted counselor, my love for the genus is mostly confined to study and photography. I am perennially excited to forage for ‘shrooms; to unearth these most enchanted and enchanting beings in the Fall forests.

I’m a child again, hunting Easter eggs that are weird, sometimes creepy, dangerous, scary-looking, and who possess names like Destroying Angel, Death Cap, Devil’s Cigar, Dead Man’s Fingers, Witch’s Butter, Bleeding Tooth, Dog Stinkhorn and Scarlet Elf Cap. Plus they’ve always been associated with magic and mystery, fairies and fantasy. Who could resist such a forest caper? Not I!

Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies from an underground network of thread-like roots called mycelium. They are not plants or vegetables but rather fungi.

The largest living organism on earth is not the blue whale but a humongous fungus; an underground mycellium network in Oregon that spans nearly 4 square miles, sprouts mushrooms, and is estimated to weigh thousands of tons. 

Fungi can eat rocks as well as dead things, breaking them down and turning them into soil that will support new life and growth.

“Fungi are the grand recyclers of the planet and the vanguard species in habitat restoration.” -Paul Stamets, author of Fantastic Fungi: How Mushrooms Can Heal, Shift Consciousness & Save the Planet

Fungi are capable of connecting entire forests in a wood wide web (nature’s internet). They actually facilitate communication between plants and trees.

They breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, just like humans  (whereas plants do the opposite).

All mushrooms are high in vitamin D. They are also fat-free, low-calorie, nutrient-dense, low in sodium and contain natural antioxidants.

“All fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once.” ~Terry Pratchett

Mushroom spores can affect the weather. They are catalysts for raindrop formation in clouds, and contribute to rainfall.

And finally, the “zombie-ant fungus” that starts as a spore on the forest floor will attach to a carpenter ant, germinate and grow inside the ant. The fungus then “brainwashes” the ant, manipulating it’s behavior, compelling it to leave the safety of the nest and attach to a nearby stem (the perfect place to grow a fungus), where the ant dies. The fruiting body (the mushroom) then bursts out of the dead ant’s head and releases spores to infect other ants. (Science nonfiction!)

What’s not to love about mushrooms?!

Mushrooms can feed, kill, heal and send one on a spiritual journey.

“I'm glad (hallucinogenic) mushrooms are against the law, because I took them one time, and you know what happened to me? I laid in a field of green grass for four hours going, "My God! I love everything." Yeah, now if that isn't a hazard to our country... How are we gonna justify arms dealing when we realize that we're all one?”    ~Bill Hicks

For fellow fungi fans I highly recommend the movie, “Fantastic Fungi.” You can almost experience the magic effects of psilocybin mushrooms just by watching!

Mushrooms ~By Sylvia Plath

Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly

Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding,

Even the paving. Our hammers, our rams, Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless, Widen the crannies, Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water, On crumbs of shadow, Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing. So many of us! So many of us!

We are shelves, we are Tables, we are meek, We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers In spite of ourselves. Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning Inherit the earth. Our foot's in the door.