Inaugural MLCO Collection Foray Report

Foray Report by Dr. Bitty Roy (MLCO Steering Committee)

Photos courtesy of Matthew Johnson and Roo Vandegrift

On Saturday, October 6, 2018, about 30 CMS members and LCC students set off to Salt Creek Falls for the first foray to collect for the Macrofungi of Lane County Oregon (MLCO) project.  Our goal is to definitively determine which fungi are present in Lane County. 

We wanted our first foray to be to the high Cascades because the season there is short and there are fungi that are particularly interesting and not common, such as Polyozellus.  We also figured that since it has been so dry, that high and near a stream would yield something.  Sure enough, we found 32 species, including this pretty one, Hypsizygus tessulatus, on wood.  In the table below is a list of what we found, organized by site and then alphabetically by species.

Not surprisingly, it rained, which led us to our first two problems.  The labels supplied by the North America Mycoflora Project are not on write-in-the rain paper, and it is difficult to photograph fungi in place when it is raining. Solution: carry a small umbrella you can tuck into your shirt, leaving your hands free to work.

CMS is a huge part of the MLCO project.  We need help photo documenting the fungi so we know where they occur and when they fruit, and we will be organizing more collecting forays specifically for gathering vouchered specimens for sequencing.  We will also shortly need money for sequencing; each specimen costs $10 to sequence.  A grant from the North American Mycoflora project is getting us started.

Helpful websites:

1. Learn more about the MLCO Project: Read more here
2. Christian Schwarz (one of the authors of Mushrooms of the Red Wood Coast) has a short video on documenting fungi and using Inaturalist: Watch here
3. Some notes from iNaturalist on getting started: Read more here

Fungi found on the 6^th of October on the first foray of the fall. Alphabetical by location.