A handful of fungi enthusiasts head up a dirt trail at Lookout Mountain Forest Preserve in the drizzling rain, searching for any treasures that catch their fancy. Those with brightly-colored jackets stand out like golden chanterelles below the thick canopy of Douglas firs. Others with more muted coats disappear into tangles of ferns and decomposing logs as they crouch to photograph and upload finds to a global database.
Many of these people — members of the Northwest Mushroomers Association (NMA) – were out in the woods the following week searching for fresh samples for the organization’s annual Wild Mushroom Show. This year’s event takes place at Fishermen’s Pavilion in Zuanich Point Park from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 27.
“There’s kind of no better place to learn about some of the fungal biodiversity in our area than the show,” said NMA Volunteer Coordinator Rachel LeWitt, who noted that the club had been putting on the event for more than 30 years.
Despite being members of one of the world’s most diverse kingdoms, fungi are the least studied. But new DNA sequencing technologies and the leveraging of community scientists have revolutionized mycology — the study of the Kingdom of Fungi.
One of the most exciting aspects of the Wild Mushroom Show is the opportunity for people to witness the incredible diversity of fungi (edible and otherwise) in the Pacific Northwest. Roughly 25 years ago, there were an estimated 1.5 million species in the Kingdom. Now it’s thought there could be more than 13 million species, with new species being identified every year — even in Whatcom County.
“A lot of people are aware that we have a lot of mushrooms out here in the forest,” said event chair Mariella Kerr. “But I don’t know that they realize just how many different types there are.”
Foray into foraging
First-time mushroom enthusiasts often get their boots on the ground and their fingers in the dirt foraging for edible mushrooms, collecting everything from burn morels (Morchella tomentosa) and lion’s mane (Hericium erinaceus) to oysters (Pleurotus pulmonarius) and Pacific golden chanterelles (Cantharellus formosus).
This fall has been a bumper year for chanterelles, leaving foragers’ baskets overflowing and searching for creative ways to cook and preserve these local delicacies.
Because foraging is a standard entry point for the mushroom-curious, mycologist Dick Morrison’s talk about edible wild mushrooms and lookalikes — those less desirable and even toxic mushies that could be mistaken for prized finds — is expected to be particularly popular.
“If you eat wild mushrooms, be 100 percent certain of their identity,” Morrison told Cascadia Daily News in mid-October. “When in doubt, throw it out.”
The NMA and wider foraging community emphasize how those harvesting fungi must ultimately take responsibility for identifying their mushrooms and deciding on whether to eat them or not. This is particularly important as foraging increases in popularity, and those new to it rely on apps to help them identify mushrooms.
While phone apps like iNaturalist and Seek can be helpful for identifying mushrooms, neither should be considered conclusive when determining the edibility of a mushroom. Foragers must also be careful to avoid self-delusion when out in the woods, Morrison added. Sometimes people will want a mushroom to be a certain species badly enough to overlook key identifiers indicating it’s an imposter.
For example, golden chanterelles can be confused with a mildly toxic look-alike, the wooly chanterelle (Turbinellus floccosus). And while a wooly chanterelle is generally known for causing gastrointestinal symptoms — such as nausea and vomiting — other lookalike mushrooms can be quite dangerous, even deadly.
Morrison will review somewhere between 20 and 30 species, focusing on what characteristics can be used to distinguish between sought-after edibles and lookalikes. He’ll also touch on how to practice ecologically responsible mushroom harvesting. While mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of the fungi — like an apple on a tree — it is still important to be thoughtful when collecting.
Call for community mycologists
The scientific path is littered with hurdles that leave laymen stumbling, from difficulties accessing specialized journals to jargon-dense reports. But one field where such amateur scientists are pushing humanity’s understanding of the natural world forward is mycology.
“A lot of people first get interested in mushrooms because they want to go out and collect things to eat,” said Sharon Squazzo, a molecular biologist who does fungi DNA sequencing in Bellingham. “As they start to do that, they realize there’s so many other things that are growing that are not necessarily edible, but they’re just so cool.”
iNaturalist, an online social network for sharing biodiversity information, has played a significant role in this process as it democratizes the sciences and gives researchers access to a treasure trove of data.
“We love to tell people about iNaturalist,” Kerr said, noting it opens the door for people to become involved in more ways than one.
In addition to posting mushroom finds, users can send mushroom samples off for DNA sequencing. Interested citizen scientists are encouraged to collect clean, fresh samples stored in separate paper bags. Those samples should be dried as soon as possible to prevent mold.
“These massive community projects with iNaturalist and these large-scale DNA sequencing groups have had a massive contribution to finding new species,” Squazzo said. “The efforts of community science have completely changed the face of mycology in the last five to eight years.”
Such contributions to science are happening in this county. Since 2019, the DNA for 575 mushrooms in Whatcom County have been sequenced. Of these, 143 were considered new to science and have been given provisional names.
Sharing the magic of mushroom diversity
Although the Wild Mushroom Show is especially appealing to amateur mycologists, the event is open to anyone who is mushroom-curious — even if they’ve only seen fruiting bodies in their lawn or grocery store.
During the event, a wide array of labeled mushrooms will be spread out among 15 tables and assorted by family. These mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungi that burst through the forest floor or the soggy cells of a decomposing log with puhpowee* and were then plucked to be shared with the Whatcom County community.
Visitors should expect to see the ever-popular golden chanterelle; the yellow jelly fungi known as witches’ butter (Tremella aurantia); a variety of Russula, including shrimp Russula (Russula xerampelina); the parasitic, yet delicious, lobster mushroom (Hypomyces lactifluorum) and perhaps even the aptly named Death Cap (Amanita phalloides).
Mushrooms provide a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors, but the club encourages visitors to use their other senses when exploring the samples. This includes touch and smell, which can range from the pleasant cinnamon and spice smell of the coveted matsutake (Tricholoma murrillianume) to the pungent, foul smell of various stinkhorns.
The Wild Mushroom Show is also slated to have a mushroom and lichen dye exhibition, vendor tables, food trucks serving mushroom-inspired dishes, a kid’s table and educational presentations, like Morrison’s incredibly popular “Fall Edible Wild Mushrooms and Look-Alikes in the Pacific Northwest” and amateur mycologist and fungal genetic researcher Matthew Koons talk, “Psilocybin Containing Fungi of the Pacific Northwest.”
“Education and knowledge is really empowering, and that is the primary purpose of the Northwest Mushroomers Association,” Kerr said. “Education not only helps dispel general, cultural fears around wild mushrooms, but also guides people to have a healthy caution when foraging for mushrooms.”
Mycelium makes a community
Popping up in the middle of foraging season, The Wild Mushroom Show is an opportunity for club members to come together and share their curiosity and excitement with the public. It’s also an opportunity for those who are tired of wandering the woods alone to connect with like-minded people.
“Mushrooms have this really unique quality: they’re kind of ephemeral,” Squazzo said. “They pop up very quickly. They disappear very quickly. And so you have to catch them at the right time.”
This quality of mushrooms requires people to be present, paying attention to what’s happening in the forest and what’s happening with the weather. Mushrooms can also be notoriously difficult to identify, especially because if a person returns to reexamine a mushroom a week later, it most likely won’t still be there.
“Identification is usually done as a group effort,” said Squazzo, noting that it can essentially be a treasure hunt. “I think that’s what drives the community.”
While the mushrooms will be the stars of the show on Sunday, it’s worth remembering that there is more to fungi than meets the eye. The rest of the organism, usually hidden in soil and wood, is known as mycelium. This network of white filaments, a branching network of thread-like hyphae, breaks down matter to feed the organism and communicates with plants through the mutually beneficial “mycorrhizal network.”
In the same way, NMA is powered by a network of passionate volunteers who have been working behind the scenes to make events like the Wild Mushroom Show possible. Info: northwestmushroomers.org.
Disclosure: Isaac Stone Simonelli is an active member of the Northwest Mushroomers Association and is generally stoked about the Fungal Kingdom.
*Potawatomi word meaning “the force which causes mushrooms to push up from the earth overnight.”
Isaac Stone Simonelli is CDN’s enterprise/investigations reporter; reach him at isaacsimonelli@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 127.