I recently became a member of the
Field Botanists of Ontario and was able to attend my first
field trip on the Thanksgiving long weekend. All about mushrooms and other fungi, I knew it was something my dad would be interested in, so I invited him to join me. It was a great, information packed day and I was so happy to share it with my dad.
The full day workshop was led by naturalist and mushroom expert
Richard Aaron, on the grounds of the
Koffler Scientific Reserve north of Toronto.
The day was divided up into outdoor time, walking through the woods gathering specimens and indoor class time.
I thought these
Eyelash Cups were adorable!
Turkey tails are really prolific, fairly easy to ID and used medicinally, especially in
treating breast cancer.
We found a lot of different
waxy caps.
And
polypores.
After we gathered our specimens we spent the afternoon in class discussing our finds.
We organised our finds into gilled mushrooms, polypores and others like coral, cup and jelly fungi and slime moulds.
I thought this
Amanita frostiana was beautiful.
Various, cool looking
jelly fungi.
More waxy caps.
An old, dried up specimen of
bird's nest fungus.
When collecting specimens it's important to gather the whole mushroom and at least make note of the substrate (what the mushroom is growing on). It can greatly help with ID if you know the mushroom was growing on hardwood for example, can see some of the mycelium or remnants of a
universal veil.
I really enjoyed this workshop and came away feeling more knowledgeable about mushrooms and even more in awe of amazing and mysterious fungi!
2 comments:
Birds nest fungus! That's what is growing in my cedar mulch. It looks so papery I thought perhaps it was some sort of wasps nest. Cool!
Oooh nice! I`d love to see a fresh specimen. Pictures that I`ve seen look so cool.
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