The Mushroom Log
Email Jerry at g_pepera@sbcglobal.net to receive notification of impromptu events. Check your most recent issue of the Mushroom Log for event updates and for more detailed information. Please plan to join us.
April 23rd (Sat.)--morel miniforay at Salt Fork State Park at Cambridge OH (eastern OH near the junction of I-77 and I-70). Convene at 9:00 a.m. Sharon (330) 457-2345
April 30th (Sat.)--morel miniforay at Beaver Creek State Park. Meet at McDonald's in Calcutta, Ohio on Rte 170. Depart for the hunt promptly at 9:30. Walt (330) 426-9833. Walt adds: "We have returned to this site several times, often with modest results in terms of morels. The location is in Eastern Ohio near East Liverpool. While morels are the motivating force, we will be looking at everything and a list of all fungi identified will be made. Other likely edibles at this time include oyster mushrooms(Pleurotus), deer mushrooms(Pluteus), dryad's saddles and smooth thimble caps (Verpa conica). For the non-mushroomers in the family, fishing is good in the creek and the area is scenic. It is wildflower time as well as morel time. It is a great birding area as well. Never found a morel before? This could be your chance."
April 30th (Sat.) morel miniforay near Napoleon OH. Meet at the Country Gourmet, 127 W. Washington, Napoleon, 8:30 am. Tamara Spillis is leading a wildflower hike for local Master Gardeners (8 people) at 10 am the same day. This will also be in some good woods. We can eat lunch at the China Buffet at 1420 N. Scott St., Napoleon. "And I have a woods after lunch if anyone want to accompany me about 10 mi. east of Napoleon. If some want to join us at the China Buffet at 12:30, they can go on the afternoon hike. I'm not taking the Master Gardeners there. Bring rubber boots. It's a hike in through a corn field, I have permission." Questions?: Tamara Spillis, email [tspillis@henry-net.com], phone 419/592-0102.
May 8th (Sun. am, Mother's Day) morel miniforay at Delaware Wildlife Management Area. Convene at 9:00 at the fishing bridge, unless it's flooded. Call Daphne at (614) 475-4144.
Please see the Calendar of Events page to view the entire list of dates.
Jack and Janet Sweigart haven't looked back since that day they placed a call to the Service Forestry office in early September 1992, asking for assistance in planning a 35 acre tree planting on land they enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). That initial visit was about to change many things for these landowners. The Sweigarts have progressed from learners to teachers.
That CRP planting was done, by hand, over two years using more than 10,000 seedlings - white pine and walnut the first year and white oak and red oak the second year. Janet started replacing trees lost from mortality with purchased seedlings as well as those grown in her own nursery. She experimented with planting bur oak acorns in the open spots, as they seemed to germinate the best. This direct seeding was the basis for their son's and daughter's-in-law project some years later on their own CRP planting.
Meanwhile, their first cost shared timber stand improvement (TSI) was completed on the 20-acre native woodland. Five years later they completed a light crop tree release and are currently on a third with a focus on thinning around the best trees and species. The trees have responded well to this method. The form, quality, and rapid growth of their pole-size trees are impressive. The native woods, with its rolling terrain and small creek, contains sugar maple, white ash, green ash, walnut, white oak, red oak, bur oak, elm, basswood, hickory, beech, and lots of unusual firewood size ironwood.
By 1993 they were accepted into the Tree Farm System. They were instrumental in starting a local woodland owners group. The fall of 1996 they received the Woodland Stewardship Award for the region and hosted the annual forestry field day for Allen and Auglaize counties.
The Sweigarts are members of the Ohio Forestry Association (OFA) and faithfully attend annual meetings and volunteer at the Paul Bunyan Show. In 1995 they took what was then the Master Tree Farm Training Program that opened up additional volunteer opportunities for the Farm Science Review and the annual State Tree Farm tour. Jack and Janet both graduated from Levels I & II of the chain saw safety course in 1996, and have since taken a review course.
Their local work includes assisting with the Ottawa River Coalition doing stream monitoring four times a month, for nine months of the year, at two different locations in the watershed. The data collected includes water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, nutrients and metals.
Statewide activities include memberships in five regional woodland owner groups while currently serving on the Ohio Tree Farm Committee. Jack is also on the OFA board of Directors. They have attended all of the National Tree Farm conventions and, as no surprise, developed good friendships with many other annual attendees.
If you stop to visit the Tree Farm and know they're home, but can't find them, they are likely out on his and her Gators, busy in the plantation. The native woodland is also a daily visit especially during those times when edible mushrooms are growing. Janet has become somewhat of a local expert in that realm and ended up with an overflow crowd during her presentation at this year's multi-state forestry day in northwest Ohio. Janet is also becoming a crowd pleaser at many events with her talks on mushrooms found in our woodlands throughout the growing season.
The Sweigarts hosted a "Value from Your Woodlot" O.S.U. Cooperative Extension event two years ago. They were one of the feature sites of an interagency professional educational day on direct seeding. Their son and daughter-in-law, Joe and Sue Sweigart, hosted the other site.
The Sweigarts have gone beyond even the norm for Tree Farmers with the degree of involvement at the organizational level. Many Tree Farmers are active in attending meetings and helping at the local level, but few give as much time to serve on committees, going to meetings that few others will, and assisting so greatly behind the scenes. They are truly Outstanding Tree Farmers.
By Daniel Winkler
Reprinted with permission from Spore Prints, the Bulletin of the Puget Sound Mycological Society.
For three days we had been driving on this muddy track known as the Sichuan-Tibet "Highway". Peaks of freshly snowcapped mountains were enshrouded by thick clouds, and heavy loads of rain were regularly released by the monsoon clouds, causing the already bad roads to disintegrate even further. The old Beijing Jeep broke down frequently, one time stranding us in the middle of a flooded creek. Luckily we were able to locate a truck which pulled us out, although not without exacting a small fortune from the Tibetan foresters whom I accompanied. At first I was annoyed when the car broke down or got stuck. Soon I discovered that it was a great chance to explore the surroundings. In Bachen County I observed a Tibetan man very slowly walking along a green hillside while staring at the ground, paying little attention to his herd of yaks. Suddenly the nomad started digging. Thinking he might be digging medicinal plants I got curious. I rushed up the slope, but had to slow down quickly. Although I had been in Tibet for a week, hiking uphill at 14,500 feet gave me good insight into how old age will feel. My rest gave me the chance to marvel at crimson Incarvilleas, purple Pedicularis, and bright yellow Himalayan Poppies.
Seemingly, the nomad had dug up two roots. When he realized that I was interested in his find, he proudly showed them and started to clean them for me. As he carefully peeled off the black topsoil encapsulating the lower half, the body of a pinky-sized,caterpillar became visible. I never had seen such a life form before and had no idea what it was. It definitely wasn't a type of plant. Yet out of its head just above its eyes, grew a long brown stalk, which my Tibetan co-worker, Pema Gyatso, called "grass."
Pema explained that I had seen my first "Yartsa gunbu," which means "summer grass-winter worm" in Tibetan. It turned out that he knew quite a bit about it, having collected them to help augment his family's meager income. "Bu" (worm), as he called it for short, start growing a "grass" above ground when spring comes to the grasslands and can be found for about a month. Tibetan herders collect them all over the grasslands and export them down to China, where they are known in traditional Chinese medicine as "Dong chong xia cao" ) "chongcao" for short), which is a literal translation of the Tibetan.
Back home in July 1997, I learned that the caterpillar, the larva of a ghost moth, had been infested by the ascomycete Cordyceps sinensis, an entomophagous (insect-eating) or entomogenous (insect-originating) flask fungus in the Family Clavicipitaceae. The best known member of this family is Claviceps purpurea, wheat ergot, infamous for causing ergotism, aka St. Anthony's fire, with symptoms of vomiting, diarrhea, hallucinations, and possibly, lethal gangrene. And while consuming Cordyceps sinensis will not provide any of these symptoms, eating a caterpillar fungus specimen might well cause disgusted retching in some faint western souls, owing to a lack of culinary appreciation of insect delicacies.
However, it is not only innocent ghost moths who become infested by Cordyceps, for apparently I too suffered an infestation. I won't claim that it is only Cordyceps that forces me to return to Tibet again and again, as it forces the moribund caterpillar to move to the place of its last rest, but my curiosity got seriously stoked. There seems to be no end to discovery when looking into such an elusive and complex-bordering on esoteric-organism endemic to one of the world's most remote areas.
As it turns out, the sprout that grows out of the caterpillar is the ascomycete's stroma, the fruiting body that is covered with spore-producing cells (asci) on its upper end. Upping the ante, each spore divides itself into 60 fertile propagules, an adaptation to increase the odds of the fungal "spore" actually making contact with its host larva.
"Host" might be too innocuous a term to describe this abusive and fatal relationship. For once the "guest" has made itself comfortable, having entered through orifices or attached itself to the outside, it starts feeding on the host. At first the "guest" dines respectfully on nonvital organs. As a last rite of their union, Cordyceps sinensis apparently makes the larva crawl into a position ideal for fungal spore dispersal-essentially taking the host on one last outing before immobilizing it for good. Infected larvae will wait out the harsh but arid Tibetan winter close to the surface, while the less fungally "accommodating" larvae will hibernate deep down in the roots of Polygonum knotweed, Kobresia sedges, or Atragalus milk-vetch, to mention a few of its favorite fodder plants.
Safely rooted, a healthy caterpillar might hibernate, daydreaming about metamorphosing into a beautiful moth fluttering for a mere few days above flower-studded meadows in hopes of scenting out a mate willing to engage in the eternal dance of genders, after three to five years spent mostly as a lowly larva.
However, by the time spring kicks in, a fungally compromised larva is not much of an insect anymore. Although its remaining exoskeleton gives the illusion of a continued caterpillar existence, by then it functions solely as a fungal fodder fridge, ready to be completely raided when warmer temperatures allow the fungus to complete its hostile takeover. Once the fungus has replaced the complete interior of the larvae with its hyphae, it will grow its sporocarp-what Tibetans call a blade of "grass"-right out of the caterpillar's fontanel.
The fruiting body will grow up to 12 cm above the ground in order to have its propagules dispersed by the wind to land on yet another larva of the 30 or so species of ghost moth (Thitarodes, formerly Hepialus ) endemic to the Tibetan Plateau. The distribution of Cordyceps sinensis is thus completely dependent on the occurrence of the ghost moths. Both organisms are endemic to grassland ecosystems of the Tibetan Plateau and adjacent areas, between altitudes of 9,000 and 16,500 ft, usually within a range of 1,500 ft around the tree line.
After my first encounter, I kept running into Cordyceps while consulting for western nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) on reforestation, nontimber forest products, and rural income generation in Tibetan areas. Leaving my guesthouse one morning in Litang, in May, 1999, I had to literally watch my steps. Sidewalks, and even some sections of side streets, were covered with patches of thousands of caterpillar fungi spread out for drying. You definitely wouldn't want to step on them, since they lose a lot of value if the sporocarp breaks off the caterpillar.
There was a lot of money lying on the ground. In 1999, one specimen fetched from 1 to 5 Yuan (Y8.2=$1), the bigger the better. In 2004, a large specimen fetched up to Y10, prices having been driven up by a widespread assumption that "chongcao" would help against SARS. Often there were several pounds of "bu" spread out on the ground, with one pound consisting of 200 to 2000 fungi. (Weight depends partly on size, but mostly on moisture content) During the Tartsa Gunbu season, the main street in Litang is hustling and bustling with deals, sellers mingling with buyers flashing their scales. Nomads and farmers arrive hourly from the hinterland, selling off their harvest, be it a handful from a day of searching or bagfuls from weeks of collecting with the entire family. The scene is male-dominated, but there are a few women, attracting mostly women sellers. Middlemen buy up the Yartsa and pass it on to big buyers, many of them representatives of phytopharma companies in Chinese coastal areas. Millions of Yuan are exchanged for Yartsa. These are substantial amounts when you take into account that the annual rural income is below Y1000 ($122). However, these deals are done in back rooms or homes.
One night I found myself in the home of a Litang party official. His house was selected since it was a beautiful traditional Tibetan house. His no less beautiful daughter and her friend had been hired by the county government as the official hostesses, a completely honorable function. After a welcome song (apparently a Tibetan melody recycled with Mandarin lyrics), I was served an opulent meal with all Tibetan specialties: deep-fried Tibetan bread, momos (noodle dumplings), dried yak meat ("please cut yourself a piece out of the hind leg"), and, for desert, troma (tiny silverweed tubers with a sweet potato taste floating in only slightly rancid melted butter). All this was accompanied by plenty of drink, and it was there I ran unexpectedly into caterpillar fungus again.
I had yet to learn to resist the pressure to drink heavily at these functions. This particular evening turned out to culminate in imbibing barley schnapps enhanced by a floating caterpillar. I felt brave enough simply drinking the Yartsa-infused schnapps, but I really started sweating and squirming (a bit like a bu worm myself) as I was offered that thing to eat. All eyes were fixed on the guest of honor, while my eyes were fixed on that alcohol-marinated caterpillar. I tried to insist that this was too much of an honor and the generous host should enjoy this delicacy, but there was no way out. Finally I closed my eyes, invoked the benefits of all the schnapps that permeated my digestive system (as well as the worm) and put it in my mouth. Unfortunately the caterpillar fungus was too big to swallow and I had to chew it.
It turns out Cordyceps sinensis has a pleasant fungal flavor. But maybe that's how larvae taste in the first place?
Daniel Winkler, a PSMS member since 1996, lives in Kirkland WA. Trained as a geographer and ecologist, he works as a researcher and NGO consultant on environmental issues of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas. He has published on forest ecology, forestry, traditional land-use practices, and medicinal plants and mushrooms. His photo essays and articles are also published on his web pages (www.danielwinkler.com)
Ed. Note: Our closest fungal relative to Cordyceps sinensis here in Ohio is Cordyceps militaris, the Trooping Cordyceps (Audubon, p. 369, Plate 687) a brightly reddish-orange colored, 2 " tall slender hard stroma, which must also be dug out carefully to find its attachment to a buried insect larva or pupa. They're small, but their bright color makes them highly visible. I'm unaware of their medicinal status here in the West.
By Dick Grimm
The following offers a fairly complete list of fungi which you may also likely encounter in the spring into very early June. For reference, I've included the Plate # and Page # from Gary Lincoff's The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms. Their colors are emphasized in Bold as a convenient way to quickly "key" them in this short list.
Genus Name |
Plate # |
Page # |
Brief Description of Species (Color emphasized) |
| Scutellinia | 604 | 353 | Mushroom is cup-shaped, red on the inside, and white on the outside, lignicolous on ground, twigs |
| Favolus | 508 | 455 | Small, fan-shaped,orange soft, corky polypore with hexagonal pores, sessile on twigs. |
| Urnula | 613 | 342 | Black stipitate cup. Black on inside, sordid white outside, lignicolous on ground, twigs. |
| Morels | 713 | 326 | Morels need no description. However, suggested plates from Audubon include 708-718. |
| Polyporus | 507 | 481 | Large polypore; grows typically on dead elm. Beige with dark brown scales, stipitate to sessile. |
| Auricularia | 617 | 380 | A brown contorted fungus, rather ear-like, rubbery texture. Grows on bush twigs and limbs. |
| Pleurotus | 484 | 793 | A white shelving cluster growing on standing or fallen trees or stumps. Stem eccentric. |
| Pluteus | 232 | 675 | Stipitate, growing on wood. Gills whitish, finally rosy pink. Cap brown. On stumps, fallen limbs. |
| Megacollybia | 265 | 807 | Large 'shrooms, lignicolous on stumps and limbs. Broad white gills, cap brown with virgate lines. |
| Psathyrella | 99 | 609 | White, growing in gregarious troops in urban lawns near dead trees, stumps, purple brown spores. |
| Mycena | 68 | 778 | Tiny red mushroom with white stem. Grows in woods, duff, typically few, white gills and spores. |
| Psilocybe | 26 | 606 | Hygrophanous mushroom growing at random in lawn-type habitat. Often plentiful, two-tone brown. |
| Agrocybe | 225 | 558 | White to buff 'shroom with cap like ½ ping pong ball. Strict, annulate, brown spores, lawn growing. |
| Agrocybe | 207 | 557 | Like previous 'shroom but typically on wood chips or plowed fields, cap often split over disc, white. |
| Stropharia | 203-4 | 729 | This mushroom gets very large, has a wrinkled, large annulus, cap wine-brown; likes wood chips. |
| Conocybe | 5 | 560 | Small, white mushroom bullet-shaped cap, long skinny stem. Evanescent: up overnight, gone by noon. |
| Agrocybe | 47 | 557 | Lawn growing, like #42, but much smaller. Sporadic, spring through summer. Whitish to buff cap. |
| Coprinus | 42 | 600 | Small tan mushroom with barrel shape cap. Clusters at base of trees & stumps. Deliquescent. |
| Agaricus | 157 | 503 | Pink gills, white cap, with short stem and double annulus. Grows in hard soil along city streets. |
| Xerula | 268 | 788 | Chinese-hat-shaped cap, long white stem with long, penetrating root. Cap is brown. |
| Coprinus | 19 | 596 | Barrel shaped, grayish-brown cap on a white hollow stem. Caespitose in grassy areas. |
| Flammulina | 63 | 759 | Orange, slimy cap w/yellowish margin, velvety stem. Grows in clusters from under elm bark. |
| Entoloma | Most spring entolomas | Umbonate, brown cap; strict stem; broad whitish gills that turn pink with mature spores. | |
| Clavulina | 744 | 401 | Sordid white, looks like a coral. Has Kingly mini-crowns at tips (use lens) Grows on logs/limbs. |
| Bolbitius | 51 | 559 | Small, yellow, slimy, bluntly conic cap; white, fragile stem. Pastures & open grassy places. |
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| Sess-pi-tose | Caespitose | Growing in clusters and stems fastened at their base. |
| Del-eh-quess | Deliquesce | To dissolve, auto-digest, eat one's self up. |
| Eck-sen-trick | Eccentric | Stem not central, but growing off to one side. |
| Eh-van-ess-sent | Evanescent | Short-lived, to disappear: usually applied to scales and/or annulus. |
| Hi-grah-fainus | Hygrophanous | To absorb water and consequently change color, or two tone. |
| Lig-nick-call-us | Lignicolous | Growing on wood. |
| Pew-tri-fy | Putrify | To rot, opposed to being solid and perennial |
| Stipp-eh-tate | Stipitate | with a stem. |
| Sess-ill | Sessile | Fastened at the side of the cap, without a stem (most polypores). |
| Stry-eight | Striate | With lines, usually regarding cap margin, but not so limited. |
| Strikt | Strict | Very straight and upright. |
| Virr-gate | Virgate | Having hair-like lines, usually from the cap center to the margin. |
