Mushrooms: Wonders of the Woods

"One shouldn't go to the woods looking for something, but rather to see what is there." John Cage

It was thrilling to spot this mass of glowing chanterelles, loudly announcing their emergence. Although they often show up in this spot, it's rarely this many. As different from the composer and mushroom expert John Cage, I know very little about mushrooms; these are the only ones I will eat, along with lawn puffballs. I generally approach mushrooms as an aesthetic, rather than culinary, experience, admiring their widely varying colors and shapes. And wow. this year there is an embarrassment of riches in the woods. After a hot, dry spring, it rained and rained and rained in July, which has encouraged a plethora of species, many of which I've never seen before. 

My chanterelle pizza

I've tried to identify some of the mushrooms I've photographed, using my Audubon guide, but haven't always succeeded. I've seen estimates of 10,000 species of mushrooms, which are the fruiting body of a fungus, and 120,000 fungi. So, I may be forgiven for not knowing even common ones. But, I think this is a Parasol mushroom. It stood out, noticeably tall and white, in the distance on the path; it was about 8 inches tall. I photographed this on August 5th; a couple of days later the cap had spread out into a flat disk, around 6 inches wide. A couple of days after that, I saw it covered with a fine hairy fungus of some sort; and as I write this on August 11, the cap has collapsed into a brown decaying form. 

"Rockland County, where Stony Point is located, abounds in mushrooms of all varieties. The more you know them, the less sure you feel about identifying them. Each one is itself. Each mushroom is what it is—its own center. It's useless to pretend to know mushrooms. They escape your erudition." John Cage

  

I love seeing red mushrooms. The color is so brilliant against the dun-colored forest floor. They demand attention.

We might think we are underwater when seeing coral mushrooms. How did this similarity happen?

In my mushroom book, this species, or similar, previously unknown to me, is grouped with Coral-like mushrooms. 

And, I'd never seen, or noticed, this cup-shaped mushroom, perhaps because of its dark color, or because it grows so close to the ground. 

It's a treat to see these small, shiny, jelly-like fungi. I think they're Orange jelly, but I wish they were Witches' Butter, because I love the name; Witches' butter, though, are yellow in color. 

I have zero idea what these tiny mushrooms are; some kind of club mushroom I suppose, new to me. They're kind of wonderful, with their groupings of erect forms with rounded tops. 

This grand specimen, about 10 inches across, lives in the same spot each year, growing on underground wood. I assume that it's a polypore of some sort; I admire its deep reddish color and rippling, overlapping forms. 

Here's a beautiful warm gray cap on a mushroom, an unusual color. It's possible that it's a Grey Spotted amanita, as a youngster, but the photos I've seen online don't look like this. The scales and veil on the stem mark it as an amanita (maybe).  

A bolete for sure. They are beautiful mushrooms, with elegant caps and stems, and pores instead of gills under their caps. They are remarkable plentiful in my near woods this summer. Many of them are edible, but since some are not, I won't cook them.

When I saw these two mushrooms, boletes, side by side in the woods, I kept exclaiming "holy mackerel! holy mackerel!" (For some reason stronger language didn't leave my mouth.) Why? because they're HUGE: the larger one was 8 inches across, and I'd never seen anything like it; nothing so large except for polypores. They'd been knocked over, so I brought them home to photograph them. Under the pores was a soft white spongy layer. How many of my readers will tell me I should have cooked these? or maybe not. 

 

Another exciting find, from very large to very small. These Velvety earth tongues were growing on a pile of logs that I've seen decay over the years; the logs are now covered with teeny orange mushrooms, some small red ones, mosses, and lichens. These are another mushroom I've never seen before, and it's surprising to me how thrilled I feel when seeing something new. They are only about an inch and a half high, which gives you an idea of how tiny the orange mushrooms are. I encourage readers to click on the images to enlarge them, to see these marvels in more detail. I'd like to close with another quote from John Cage, which expresses beautifully the love due to mushrooms:

"What permits us to love one another and the earth we inhabit is that we and it are impermanent. We obsolesce. Life's everlasting. Individuals aren't. A mushroom lasts for only a very short time. Often I go in the woods thinking after all these years I ought finally to be bored with fungi. But coming upon just any mushroom in good condition, I lose my mind all over again. Supreme good fortune: we're both alive!" 

 

Growth, Decay, Growth

Early spring: the time of year when I spend most of my time in the vegetable garden, preparing rows, planting seeds and home-grown seedlings, weeding and weeding again. It is also a time when I am struck with wonder at the miracle of it all: the seeds germinating, the growth patterns, the yearly emergence of asparagus spears, the delicious fruits and vegetables I'm able to grow. 

 

Although I do understand––a little––about DNA, it still seems remarkable that this teeny broccoli seed, put in soil and watered, will grow into the broccoli plant in the first photo; it is mind-boggling to think about it.

These more recognizable seeds of corn will grow into six foot tall plants. Of course other life forms, including Homo sapiens, have tiny beginnings, all wondrous. 

Working in the garden, and walking in the woods,  also reminds me that decay has a major role in the life cycle. A compost pile is a clear lesson in how scraps of food and plant remains can be transformed over time...

,,,,into a nutrient rich soil supplement.

In a more natural way, years of decaying plant material creates a forest floor welcoming to new plants and trees. 

Over a long period of time I've seen an old pile of logs become more and more part of the forest floor, covered with mosses and lichen, small plants, and young trees; it is now a mound of new green growth, softened in outline.

The plant-covered pile of logs above began just like this one, and I expect that in several years these bare dead logs will be covered with plant life.

Decaying tree stumps are also hospitable to new plants, which create a lively mix of greens, and rich textures.

Many mushrooms grow on dead wood, such as these hemlock varnish shelf mushrooms brightening a tree stump. 

Decaying trees support more than other members of the plant family, and fungi: when I see wood chips scattered over the forest floor, I look for the telltale holes made by pileated woodpeckers drilling for insects. I've often heard the loud rat-a-tat-tat of these large birds hammering in the woods.

This cycle of life to decay to new life reminds me of John Cage's words: 

The world, the real is not an object. It is a process.                                                       

 

A Walk in the Woods: A Vast Small World

Looking closely at the tiny details of a woodland habitat can confuse a sense of scale: clumps of moss become wooded hillsides; masses of mushrooms rise above the forest like water towers or oddly shaped wind turbines; the lines of pine needles are downed logs.
(click click click to enlarge and see the scale shift)

A small army climbs up the steep rounded slopes.

Waving above the frothy mosses are the tall red stalks of their fruiting bodies.

Lichens too have tall reproductive structures: pillars topped with shallow cups.

Alongside the mushrooms, lichens, and mosses, new plants have beginnings: a small leaf....

....a maple....

....a conifer.

All this life, this variety of species, is growing on a pile of decaying logs about 5 feet long and 2 wide. Decay is not an ending.

New Fruits

According to the botanical definition, peas are a fruit. From Wikipedia:

In botany, a fruit is a part of a flowering plant that derives from specific tissues of the flower, one or more ovaries, and in some cases accessory tissues. Fruits are the means by which these plants disseminate seeds.

Of course, in the kitchen, peas are a vegetable, but I thought I'd show some botanical fruits from the garden in this post, whether we treat them as fruits or as vegetables on our dining tables. It's the height of the pea season right now, and I'm spending time picking, shelling, and blanching peas for the freezer, a real treat during winter.

The zucchini are beginning to form, dwarfed by the magnificent squash flower.

In our short growing season here in Vermont, we can't expect tomatoes until late July or early August, and that is only for the early varieties, like these delicious Sungold cherry tomatoes.

The cucumber has a smaller flower than the squash, and its tiny beginning is decoratively spiked.

These baby bell peppers still have the remnants of their flowers on their surfaces.

With a similar flower to the cucumber, the itty bitty melon is beginning to swell. If the flower is pollinated, it will grow into a delicious hybrid honeydew, Orange Honey. If not, it will wither away.

There have been lots of bumble bees and wild bees and other pollinators in the garden, so I have high hopes for my squash and melon crops. This is a tiny pumpkin whose flower has not yet opened. When I look at the spiny surfaces of pumpkin and melon and cucumber, I think that these prickles must have evolved to protect the fruit.

And here are two fruits that we eat as fruit: raspberries, not yet red ripe.....

.....and blueberries, closer to being ready to pick for fresh eating, for desserts, for jam, and for freezing. So much potential in the garden, so much to look forward to eating!

And to round off the fruits growing at my house, a very small mushroom, the fruiting body of a fungus,  whose tiny spores have the same purpose as the larger seeds of the fruits and vegetables above: life spreading and perpetuating.

A Walk in the Woods: Dress Whites, Hoods, and Fruiting Bodies

Late May into June is a time for small white flowers in the woods, as though announcing a bridal season. First to greet me as I step into the dappled darkness are the elegant little starflowers: pointed petals, pointed leaves, a bright green center and spreading stamens topped with yellow spheres.

A carpet of green dotted with white is found further down the path. This is the bunchberry, which confuses us in that its white "petals" are actually bracts, and the flowers are in the center.

I see several flowers made up of clusters, round as above, or in spikes. I don't know what this flower is, but its tiny flowers seem to explode from the center, the stamens reaching outward into space.

I think this may be a foamflower. The camera's close eye lets me see the spectacular sight of the tiny many-petaled flowers and their very long pistil and stamens. (click to enlarge and see details)

The wild lily of the valley has a similar structure to the two flowers above, though with fewer elements. They look like little Sputniks spinning about.

This too, probably a red baneberry, has the outstretched stamens. I wonder if the tiny size of the flowers makes this structure more important in pollination. They are all lovely to come across on the woodland path, so delicate and light and airy.

After the frothy whites of the small flowers, what could be more different than the large, sturdy, green and deep-red Jack in the Pulpits. Their vase shaped forms and curving hoods create dramatic characters along the woodland path. 

There is more to enjoy than flowers in the woods, though in a way, mushrooms are the flowers of the fungi living underground. They are its fruiting bodies (I love that phrase) that carry spores for reproduction. And how magical they are, appearing suddenly, seeming from nowhere. And how especially wonderful when a choice edible like a morel pops up in the middle of the path, a single grand mushroom with its complex cap, like a mass of cave dwellings.

I am ending with an image that may seem quite ugly, a mass of old shelf mushrooms that must have fallen together from their tree. On the forest floor they look almost like an animal pelt, dark and worn and furry. I see something compelling in this decaying mass: a complex layering of texture and deep colors, contrasted with the warm-colored gluey surface of the interior. Decay is part of the cycle of life and death, having a beauty of its own.