As I've mentioned before, up here in Maine has been the wettest summer I have ever experienced. Until the past few days it has been overcast and rainy every day for 41 days, with only two semi-clear ones to break up the wet. I've been feeling like a mushroom at times and even wondered if fungus was going to start growing here and there on me. Over the past month I've been watching the local post office, not for mail, but for 'shrooms; which grow there in plenty.

One day I noticed a few white mushrooms, then the next a few orange ones joined them, then some yellowish brown ones joined the party. And a heck of a party it is, I pulled out my mushroom field guides and tried to identify them. I got so caught up it this that I contacted the Maine Mycological Association and got their calender of events. After messing around for a few days with the post office 'shrooms I joined them for a foray into the woods, chasing the wild mushroom. I'll tell you more about that mushroom foray in part two of this series.

I have always been fascinated by wild mushrooms. My dad talked about going mushrooming in the forest when he was a boy growing up in Europe. My mother avidly craves mushrooms, but never went mushrooming herself. Both my mom and dad warned me repeatedly about how unsafe it is and so I guess it stuck. I never did more than buy field guides about mushrooms, which I barely cracked open until this week. This is strange because I am a fanatic about foraging for wild edible and medicinal plants. I have a M.Ed in Outdoor Education, am a licensed wilderness guide, and an Outward Bound Instructor. When I was out in the wilderness I tried to live of the land as much as I could and constantly studied about wild edible and medicinal plants.But as for the post office, I found out that the orange/yellow mushrooms are Jack O'Lantern mushrooms. Properly known as Omphalotus olearius, formerly known as Clitocybe olearia and Clitocybe illudens. The Jack O'Lantern isn't edible, it is definitely poisonous. In immature specimens it can be confused with the safe, and even tasty, Chanterelles, cantharellus cibarius. Not only that but it is one of the few mushrooms that can also cause contact dermatitis, ie. skin rashes; with burning and itching and other nasty symptoms. I am very sensitive to things like this and when I picked one of the jack O'Lanterns, a tiny fragment got into the edge of my nail on one finger, and within seconds my finger started burning, itching, and tingling. I always keep disinfectant wipes in my car and used several to get off every trace of the itchy 'shroom. then went home and washed my hands thoroughly to get off every last bit. My finger was itchy and sore for several hours after wards.

This was a great lesson that drove home to me that doing something like mushrooming should always be done with the help of experts, plus it made me go and do my homework and study my mushroom guides. There ls one other thing about the Jack O'Lantern mushroom that's pretty cool. Supposedly if you pick one (wear plastic gloves) and go into a pitch dark room or closet, it will glow a faint green from the gills on the underside of the cap, like a fire fly; due to the enzyme luciferase.

Mushroom Gallery A


Besides the Jack O'Lantern mushroom, I identified one type as possibly being the Slippery Jack, properly known as the Suillus luteus or formerly as the Boletus luteus. I am pretty sure I identified it correctly, and it is edible and even considered good; but to eat it safely you have to remove the cap, throw away the stem, and dry the cap first, before cooking. Also, even with the drying and cooking, some folks may experience diarrhea. So I decided that I didn't need to try this one out either.

One thing I did learn in my mushroom studies is that many types can only be eaten safely when cooked, but may make you ill if eaten raw.

Another mushroom I positively identified was the Fly Agaric, properly called Amanita Muscaria. This is one I have always know is poisonous, but also that it has hallucinogenic properties. I learned about this mushroom when I was studying anthropology as an undergrad, with a specialization in the study of vision quests and other altered states of consciousness as a religious pursuit by various tribes throughout history. I remember that if you eat them you may have hallucinations, delirium, manic behavior, profuse sweating, and fall into a deep sleep; from which you may not always awake. This mushroom was used by Siberian Shaman for religious vision rituals. They would slowly get used to eating it in small amounts to build up a tolerance to the poison. After a long time they could eat larger amounts without killing themselves. Interestingly enough, and I kid you not, reindeer like to eat this mushroom a lot, possibly because they like the buzz, or they develop an addiction to it. I haven't had any tell me which. Now, what's even more interesting is that the shaman discovered that if they ate the Amanita Muscaria, their urine would contain the hallucinogenic compound, but not the poison.They would prepare large amounts of their trippy pee and then the tribe would drink it so they could have visions. Even more bizarre, somehow the reindeer discovered this, and taking a pee could actually be dangerous, because the reindeer would knock over people when they went to pee, trying to drink the urine. People are strange, reindeer are too.

There were a few other mushrooms I found at the post office, like a shelf fungus, probably a Stereum insignitum, which is woody and inedible; but none that were safe to eat; except one, which while not poisonous, supposedly doesn't taste that great either. I lost the sample and don't even know what it is anymore. Now I wanted to find some safe, edible, tasty 'shrooms; but was scared to death. So I set up to meet with the pros with the Maine Mycological Association and learn from them.

While taking photos and collecting samples at the post office, several other folks joined me and we talked about how this is the summer for fungi. One woman directed me to a tree a block away that had an enormous fungus growing on it. The tree, a mature Sugar Maple, was almost three feet wide and the fungi is almost as wide as the tree, several feet high, and a foot in depth. I identified this as the Northern Tooth Fungus, Climacodon septentrionale, and look forward to seeing how large it's going to grow, before it kills the tree.

Mushroom Gallery B