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| Nancy Weber, left, and Annamieka Hopps examine mushrooms uncovered on their mushroom walk on Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007, near Neskowin. |
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Slippery Jacks, slugs and shaggy manes
Fungi foraging is better when you travel with an expert
By Niki Price
Oregon Coast Today
The “Official Checklist of Oregon Birds” lists 498 species that occur here. “Trees to Know in Oregon,” an invaluable resource on any nature lover’s bookshelf, describes 65 species native to the Beaver State.
That sounds like a lot of variety, until you consider the staggering diversity of the world beneath your webbed feet: experts estimate that between 3,000 and 5,000 different kinds of macrofungi reside in Oregon. Mycologist Nancy Weber, an affiliate professor at Oregon State University and co-author of several books on the subject, has counted 345 different kinds just in her quarter-acre yard in Corvallis.
There are so many species, she said, that there’s not one resource book that identifies them all. In Western Oregon, fungi are quite literally everywhere — growing one foot down, 200 feet up and everywhere in between — and a few of them are even good to eat.
Others can shut down your liver for keeps, so it’s important to know what you’re doing. One of the best ways to launch a foray into fungi is to take a guided walk, led by an experienced guide like Weber. Last weekend, she led a group of students from the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on a field trip in the woods near Neskowin. Armed with small knives, wax paper, sturdy boots and open baskets, they scrambled over moss-covered logs and shoulder-high ferns to find as many types as they could.
After substantial summer and early fall rains, the hunting wasn’t too difficult. Within a few hundred feet of the road, the beginning foragers found more than 20 different types, which they carefully wrapped and sealed in wax paper packages for later examination. They began to learn some of the common names — oysters, honey mushrooms, slippery jacks, kings — although Weber cautioned against using such an unreliable scheme. One hunter’s “slug” is another’s “shaggy mane,” and most don’t have names in English anyway, she said. Better to learn the full scientific name, such as Agaricus campestris, as you learn its important characteristics, she said. Positively identifying fungal species, naturally, is all about noticing the details.
“You’ve taken on a challenge,” Weber said with a smile. “We’ll teach you how to do the detective work.”
For veteran hunters and mushroom chefs like Bruce Waugh, who co-teaches the Sitka Center class with Weber, it’s the challenging taxonomy, the seemingly endless variations, that keep him intrigued. He’s also found it has a distinct advantage over other outdoor hobbies.
“The great thing about mushroom hunting is that you never get skunked, and they don’t move nearly as fast as birds,” he said.
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