2000 Mt. Pisgah Arboretum and Cascade Mycological Society Mushroom Show and Fall Festival: Mushroom Display Article for Tree Times
By Peg Boulay and Marcia Peeters
Despite a crispy, crunchy, mushroom-unfriendly fall, new and expanded education and
activity tables made the mushroom display at the 2000 Mt. Pisgah Mushroom Show and Fall Festival one of the best ever! Cascade Mycological Society joined Mt. Pisgah Arboretum as show sponsors, which meant even more volunteers and creative energy to help produce one of the premier mushroom shows in the West! The dry Autumn caused sporadic and unpredicable mushroom fruitings in western Oregon. But the persistence and knowledge of volunteer collectors resulted in a respectable mushroom display of 290 species. Twenty-six of these species had not been previously identified at the show.
Once again, we were fortunate to have expert help in identifying mushrooms and
answering visitors’ questions. We are very grateful to Dan Luoma & Joyce Eberhart from Oregon State University, Ankie Camacho from University of California Berkeley, and our local specialists Freeman Rowe, Joe Spivack, and several CMS members for sharing their expertise.
There is always much speculation as to what muchrooms will win the coveted “Best of
Show” prize. This year Ryan Turner’s spectacularly large and intricate Daedalea quercina was deemed best of the best. The 1st prize was awarded to several Phallus impudicus,
ranging in age from egg to fully mature, collected by Kyle Hammon and his students, Tad
Butler, Travis Marep, and Darcy Hulse, and 2st place went to to an impressively large
Boletus edulis collected by Aubrey Carney. As if finding these treasures wasn’t exciting
enough, the lucky winners were awarded ribbons and beautiful framed mushroom stamps from Mexico. Freeman Rowe, founder and judge of the Best of Show contest, generously donated the prizes.
The expanded educational tent proved popular with show-goers. There was more room for the “Edible and Poisonous” display, which was always crowded. This display allowed viewers to compare edible mushrooms with their non-edible look-alikes and ask questions on identification, finding edibles, tips on habitat for different species, and even favorite
recipes.
“Fun Facts about Fungi” was a new display that included information on fungal ecology,
especially relationships between fungi and plants (mychorrizae, mycotrophic plants) and the role of these relationships in plant establishment and growth. The display also featured some hands-on activities that particularly engaged kids. The activity area called “A Closer Look” provided 10x power magnifying lens and mushrooms with interesting details and textures to examine. We used a microscope and a videoscope, kindly provided by Lane Community College, to project images of mushroom spores. Spores are normally invisible to the unaided eye but are often interesting and ornate, which piqued the interest of our visitors.
The Lichen display was also expanded this year, with over 60 species identified. This
year’s “Cultural Use of Mushrooms” focused on cultivated medicinal mushrooms and included commercially-grown blocks of Ling Chi (Ganoderma lucidum) and Maitake (Grifola frondosa).
With the help of dedicated and patient volunteers we achieved another first, we
digitally photographed all of the mushrooms on display. These photographs will serve as a reference library, will help with future identification, and will someday be available to
the public through CMS’s webpage. We would like to thank Action Rentall & Party Time, who loaned us a 20′ x 20′ canopy that we used for a “behind the scenes” work area for mushroom identification and digital photography. We also used the work area to store odd, peculiar, and rare fungi waiting to be identified. We always need a place to put those lonely boxes of generic brown mushrooms – often belonging to the difficult genera Cortinarius, Russula, and Ramaria!
North American Truffling Society (NATS) participated again this year, displaying
different kinds of truffles and answering questions. Terry Gatchell also joined us again
to demonstrate pasteurization and innoculation techniques for home-grown mushrooms and sold his cultivation kits. Other vendors sold wild mushrooms and other “grow your own” kits, including shitake logs. Representatives from the Willamette and Siuslaw National Forests and the US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station gave out free mushroom picking permits and information on collecting mushrooms on public land.
Among our innovations this year, we decided to leave the show up an extra day, hoping to
provide a learning experience for school groups. The LCC mycology students took advantage of the extra opportunity to study the mushrooms, but we were not able to line up schools at short notice. We plan on leaving the display up longer next year, and will invite schools in advance. We also hope to explore funding possibilities to assist school participation, as we were told that school field trip budgets have been slashed.
We are planning even more new displays and activities for next year, and perhaps a few surprises to celebrate the 20th Mt. Pisgah Mushroom Show and Fall Festival. See you next year!
The Cascade Mycology Society is grateful for the great energy, hard work, dedication,
and commitment of so many volunteers. The following volunteers helped create, set up, and staff the mushroom displays: Cameron Bergen, Bob Blanchard, Peg Boulay, Jim Boyd, Kendon Bright, Ron Hamill, Kyle Hammon, Russ Kelly, Krista Kennard, Cheshire Mayrsohn, Chris Melloti, Rebecca Meyer, Bruce Newhouse, Marcia Peeters, Dave Pilz, Jena Price, Freeman Rowe, Jeani Sapienza, Orin Schumacher, Karen Tate, Ryan Turner, Molly Widmer, the LCC Mycology students, and the dozens of people who collect mushrooms for the show each year.
Mount Pisgah Arboretum honors Cascade Mycological Society: Twenty Years – And Fruiting More Abundantly Than Ever!
At the Arboretum’s annual meeting, on behalf of CMS, Marcia Peeters accepted a beautifully framed 2001 Mushroom Show poster. Cascade Mycological Society is grateful and honored to have received an award for extraordinary service from the Mount Pisgah Arboretum.
By Marcia Peters
Hundreds of volunteers and thousands of hours make the Mt. Pisgah Arboretum and Cascade Mycological Society Mushroom Show what it is today – a Fantastic Fall Festival which must not be missed!
The Mt. Pisgah Arboretum Mushroom Show was started in 1981 by Freeman Rowe and students of his Lane Community College Mushroom Class – along with former students and dedicated volunteers from the community. Created as a fundraiser for the Arboretum, the show grew to the stately stature it is today, spawning the Cascade Mycological Society in its wake. Every year, as the show grows, so do the opportunities one can indulge in.
Our mycotrophic plants display included Allatropa virgata (candy stick) and it’s fungal associate Tricholoma magnivelare (matsutake), Monotropa uniflora (Indian pipe) with various Russula species, Hemitomes congestum (gnome plant) with various Hydnellum species, and Pleuricospora fimbriolata (fringed pinesap) with Gautieria monticola. This display was very nicely done to include a dried example of the plant, the fresh mushroom, and a poster explaining the relationship.
Other posters included information on ants and termites that ‘farm’ fungi for food, the largest known fungus on the planet, mushroom structure, spore prints, mychorrhizal relationships, truffles, poisonous mushrooms, edible mushrooms, the effects of commercial harvesting and more. One could peruse the books on fungi or use a handlens to take a closer look at the gills or pores of a mushroom. Thanks to Lane Community College, one could view spores and spore ornamentation via a monitor hooked to a phase contrast microscope, or look at those teeny tiny fungal parts with a dissecting scope.
A large lichen display, covering 2 1/2 tables was available, as were knowledgeable volunteers to answer those many many questions. Lichens consist of a fungus and an algae living in a symbiotic relationship. The fungus provides the structure while the algae provides the food.
Maggie Rogers brought her wonderful collection of mushroom-dyed wool, Taylor Lockwood signed and sold his new book, the Willamette National Forest issued personal use permits, commercial mushroom kits were available for purchase, and Terry Gatchell once again offered pasteurization demonstrations.
Freeman Rowe’s ‘Best of Show’ awards included: Lentinellus montanus (Best of Show), Auricularia auricula (First Place), and Catathelasma ventricosa (Second Place).
Representatives from Cascade Mycological Society (CMS), North American Truffling Society (NATS), Oregon Mycological Society (OMS), and Oregon State University were on hand to answer questions and identify mushrooms.
We had 328 mushrooms on display – an all time record high – with 44 of those ‘new to the show’. So far, over the 20 years, we’ve recorded 660 species on display. Now that’s fungal diversity!
Many thanks to Freeman Rowe – a most inspirational, charismatic and empowering person! For without his insight 20 years ago, we would not be here today.
Article for "Tree Time," journal of the Mt. Pisgah Arboretum.
By Molly Widmer December, 1999
In a temperate clime, every season has unique and characteristic high points of beauty; days and parts of days where the wheel of the seasons seems to stop, and one is suspended in the ideal of that season. On a day like this, the perfection of nature’s beauty is borne forcibly home into one’s mind and spirit, and one’s entire being is saturated with the sensory delights peculiar to this exact time of year. Such a day brings out the poetic and romantic elements in one’s nature- drawn from who knows what reserve- that another day would leave uninspired. The funny thing is how this experience is reserved for each season and change of season in turn. The magic of the early spring day when the warming soil can first be smelled on the air is only perfect during the time of year when all is young or still unborn. On such a day, this seems the only kind of beauty we can possibly understand or desire, and the hunger for delights autumnal seems an impossibility, a faded memory with no force of immediacy or reality.
But by late October, the heat and powerful herbaceous developments of summer have satiated our terrible need for ease and wealth and solar radiation. Our hungry skins have been bronzed, our hair is streaked with sunlight, the soles of our sandaled feet have become worthy of summer’s treks. And though it never seems possible even a few short weeks earlier, we become at first resigned to, and then accepting of, and finally willing for the cool ripeness of autumn. For those who work on and attend the Mt. Pisgah Mushroom Festival, the promise of fall holds such breathless excitement because it brings with it the onset of rains, and soon after, carpets of glistening mushrooms pushing up through a newly springy, fragrant forest floor. “Drenching rains” and cool temperatures call out the fruiting bodies of millions of tiny and great fungi in every conceivable niche.
There is the fragrant, buried treasure of truffles, burgeoning unseen among the rootlets of the great trees, and countless, tiny Mycenas rising on thin translucent stalks from twigs, fallen leaves, and rotting logs. There are armies of grass-loving species in brave troops nearly anywhere poison hasn’t been used, and hearty queues of gravel-lovers pushing up through the edges of forest roads, marching in commensal sympathy along the path of least resistance adhered to by those who avoid the deep forest. Everywhere one looks (if one really looks!) there are gorgeous, bizarre, and undreamed-of expressions of fungal diversity.
Waxy, brightly-colored cup fungi puff fertile clouds of spores at the slightest warm human breath. Warted, ringed, and bulb-based Amanitas tower in dominant splendor, their singular architecture demanding respect and admiration every single time they are encountered. Jelly-like growths amaze us with their jewel-like depths, their silken, unstructured
evanescence.
And the fragrances! Unique to this season is an entire universe of powerful and diverse olfactory delights. The rain-soaked soils and even the rocks give off subtle, pervasive mineral and humic scents which define the smell of cool, moist air. Against this background, the mushroom-hunter
is rewarded with a rich tapestry of fragrances specific to various fungi, one rising from nearly every fungus encountered. There is the surprising match of strong fruity and sweet scents with the corky, tough conks; and the mouth- watering almond and anise scents inviting the lucky picker to savor choice edibles. There are intense, unbelievably familiar scents which punctuate the complacency of one’s hunting rhythm: Chlorine, so sharp it nearly hurts! Watermelon, as undeniable as any teeny-bopper’s bubble gum! Vanilla, strong enough to be used as a sachet! Anise! Almond! Garlic! Seafood! And, once experienced, no-one ever forgets the arresting cinnamon odor which emanates from the legendary matsutake even before their handsome, thick-fleshed caps have pushed clear of the sandy soil! Mushroom-lovers usually begin dreaming humid, fragrant dreams fairly long in advance of the rainy season. This year, however, the sodden spring and tepid early summer belayed our willingness to relinquish late summer’s heat and comforts.
Revolting somewhat against the inexorable turn of the seasons, many of us felt that early fall rains would be unfair somehow, that our solar banks were not yet full, and that we deserved the full measure of our azure and burning days. The deal was kept: rains did not come, the days continued perfect, long, baking, static. Long into late September, long into October.
Finally, one by one, those of us planning the species display at the Mt. Pisgah Mushroom Festival surprised ourselves as the long Indian summer dragged on, by admitting to a desire for rain. This year, founding members of the newly-formed Cascade Mycological Society (CMS) took responsibility for the display as the single most important goal in our first year of organization. When the rains did not come, and still did not come, we started joking, at first fantastically, and later with an increasing sense of uncomfortable “what if-ness” about the possibility that the rains would not come in time to sponsor a rich and wonderful display for the Mushroom Festival. Many of us remembered the same worries leading up to last year’s Festival, and we knew, based on the last-minute success of the display in 1998 (second-greatest diversity in the history of the show) that this year’s show would probably turn out all right. But as October ticked along, reports came in from devoted hunters in three states, scouring the
mountains and the coast, crawling on hands and knees along creek banks, searching out any topographic feature where moisture and cool air might sink and settle. And the reports were negative. Not just “no choice edibles,” or “no charismatic macrofungi,” but “no fungi at all.” Even little brown mushrooms. Even Mycenas. Even Inocybes. Even conks. No fungi at all.
Right up to two weeks before the show, it was unclear what kind of display could be made. Mushroom shows were being put off and canceled in nearby areas, and forays were turning up very little at all. The Mt. Pisgah Mushroom Festival has never been canceled, and the vow was made that it would not be canceled now.
Finally, the drought began to break, but only by thin, brief showers which were evaporated into the hot air, or absorbed into the treetops. One locale would have sprinkles, and another would receive nothing. Even where precipitation did penetrate the canopy, moisture beaded up on waxy, hydrophobic duff, or the desiccated soils were barely dampened, and swallowed up the precious moisture without yielding fungi in return. The threshold was not being met, and the window (defined by the lag-time required for mushroom development) was closing fast. Finally, in the very last days before the show, well-loved sites in the Cascades and the coast began to yield. An army of devoted, experienced, and alert collectors ramified out into the countryside, seeking any and all expressions of fungal fruition. No Mycena was too small. No resupinate polypore too obscure, no “little brown job” too intimidating. Everything was collected. Everything was attempted. It has been mentioned hat the new group Cascade Mycological Society (CMS) took on the planning of this now famous event It may have been a brand-new Society, but this was not an all-new crew by any means: At the head of this mycelium of mycophiles were the intensely productive personalities who have organized and developed the show every year since they dreamed it up: Marcia Peeters and Freeman Rowe. They have been joined in recent years by organizational powerhouses Peg Boulay and Bruce Newhouse, who have enhanced documentation and enumeration of the show’s amazing abundance (Peg is CMS’ first President, as well). The fleet of volunteer collectors also included people in the community who have been helping bring in the bounty for years, every year. In the tradition, the Lane Community College Mushroom class devoted hours of student volunteer time to help with set-up, this year under new instructor Eric B. Peterson, ably following in the famous footsteps of Freeman Rowe and Ankie Camatcho before him. Scores of people spent uncounted hours in long-term and last-minute organizational work, and the day before the show, the massive push was made: the tables and nametags and displays and decorations were set up, and myriad mushrooms were carefully identified and set out by members of Cascade Mycological Society and friends.
As in past years, expert mycologists and taxonomists were enlisted to identify specimens coming in on the day of the show. Help came from many groups and individuals, including Dan Luoma, Joyce Eberhart, Andrea Humpert, and Nancy Weber from OSU; Jamie Platt and Ankie Camatcho from Berkeley, formerly of OSU; and many individuals from the new Cascade Mycological Society, notably Festival organizer and walking encyclopedias Marcia Peeters and Freeman Rowe (CMS’ newly honored Member for Life!).
It was through the efforts of these experts that the Festival boasted in incredible 53 species new to the already impressive cumulative tally. Against what seemed like impossible odds, the last mushroom display for the millennium yielded a total of 280 species, and came in third most diverse in the Festival’s twenty year history! A rich symbiosis was further encouraged between researchers, students, amateurs, and agency personnel to bring mycology in our area to new heights. Specimens were accessioned into the OSU Herbarium, and there were several new and surprising identifications credited to the show by sharp-eyed and diligent taxonomists. These efforts were supported by a newly expanded area behind the scenes where those braving the more difficult groups could work quietly at banks of microscopes. Both the Siuslaw and Willamette National Forests were present to provide personal use picking permits, and there were beautiful and informative posters and displays on a variety of subjects. Dave Pilz presented his research on commercial mushroom harvest, Terry Gatchell demonstrated pasteurization and inoculation of mushroom spawn into straw. The North American Truffling Society of Corvallis sent us Charles leFevre and Dan Wheeler, identifying underground fungi and answering questions about these fragrant but cryptic fruits. There were even innoculated mushroom-growing blocks for sale, and examples of shiitake, oyster, and Hericium cultivation.
A very popular tradition was enjoyed when Freeman Rowe awarded the honors and prizes for the top three finds of the show: Bruce Newhouse’s Best of Show Laetiporus sulphureus (a gorgeous, brilliant orange shelf fungi prized as a choice edible), Danna Lytjen’s first place Ganoderma applanatum (a huge and perfectly preserved “Artist’s conk” of exquisite proportions), and Dan Wheeler’s second place Boletus edulis (a truly massive example of this most sought-after and handsome species).
The Mushroom Festival was enhanced this year by a fascinating array of display tables. Drawing large crowds were tables on cultural uses of fungi, lichen identification and ecology, edible and poisonous species, and new this year, the “adult discovery table,” a place where folks could peruse a selection of books, use a microscope, touch and smell fresh specimens. This table holds much potential for a changing kaleidoscope of first-hand mushroom experiences in future years. Speaking of potential, there is always a sign-up table for festival goers who wish to help with the mushroom display next year. If you missed this table and would like to become involved, you can call Marcia Peeters at 343-3575. Cascade Mycological Society also had a table — if you missed it, and would like information about how you can be involved, you can call Molly Widmer (746-7548 or 683-6797).
Our first general meeting is being held December 9, 1999, at Lane Community College, and there are many plans for this quickly- growing organization in the new millennium.