Vancouver Island: November 7, 2009

My partner Nigel and I visited friends on Vancouver Island this past weekend.  We went for an extended walk in a sodden but beautiful forest.  At times the sun peered through the trees and illuminated the many fungi growing in this warm, wet climate.  It took me a while to adjust to a forest outside of the urban environment.  There were many varieties of fungus growing around the trail but I couldn’t see them a first.  My friends ahead of me pointed out mushrooms which I in turn pointed out to Nigel and he then photographed them.  It was a chain of finding, seeing and documenting that moved through four bodies.

This was my first opportunity to collect specimens and I found my manner towards the mushrooms shifting.  I became less interested in documenting them in situ and more interested in plucking and stowing them in my brown paper shopping bag.  I no longer wanted to “waste” time looking at varieties I had seen before.  I was enamored with seeing species that I had only encountered in books.  My bag continued to fill.

Sometimes, I picked a mushroom only to discover it was filled with tiny insects or plump slugs.  This reminds me of the ecological complexity of the forest. Organisms feed on one another holding each other in compositions necessary for survival.  Mycelium digest externally by releasing enzymes that break down nutrients in the soil and then absorbing them.  When mychrozial fungus breaks down nutrients it enhances the ability of nearby plants and trees to absorb necessary nutrients.  One might think of it as a giant stomach, digesting all dead organisms while providing the very nutrients essential for life.  Fungus is sometimes described as a gateway organism that resides in that liminal space between life and death.

The scent of the wet, brown paper combined with moving through the forest made me feel quite nostalgic.  I felt as though I was engaged in discovering the world again the way I had when I was child.  When I was a kid, I spent much of my time in a Central Alberta forest surrounded by Spruce, Poplar, Aspen and Saskatoon bushes.  This quiet fascination with looking closely and being still in the woods came back to me.

I quickly discovered my limitations in terms of identification.  I have an excellent ID book but it is organized by Latin names which I don’t know at all.  It seemed like hours to look up the name of a mushroom seen on the walk.  My friends were eager to find mushrooms that were edible but I really couldn’t safely tell the difference.  Better to pick it and ID it later, I thought, however, once I was back at the house laying out my collection on newsprint I was even less sure.  We were all excited by how lovely my collection looked laid out on newsprint.  I wondered if this was the same sense of desire made into order felt by early collectors when piecing together their cabinets of curiosities.

Lighthouse Park Foray: October 18, 2009

I attended an interpretive tour given by Terry Taylor  at the request of the Lighthouse Park Preservation Society.  Despite the cool, misty weather around twenty-five people attended.  We were an oddly composed group that ranged in age, interest and background knowledge.  (They seven year old that knew the latin names for all the fungi was a bit daunting)  We all huddled around Terry using his eyes to guide us in  seeing the forest anew.

Terry ambled along the pathways with his faded red back pack quickly finding and extracting examples of different fungi common to old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.  He pointed out distinct physical features of mushrooms such as shaggy parasols and inky caps.  He passed around a mushroom grown on compost (the Society has been amended some of the eroded pathways with fresh soil) that smelled like cucumber.  At one point he chewed on a rather indistinct looking mushroom to test for a peppery flavour.  Once the heat was detected, he spit out the mushroom and reminded us that while taste is an important method of identification it requires chewing not swallowing.  I am astonished by the range of sense required for proper identification- sight-taste-smell.

As we wound our way through the pathways, I started to see some fungi without having to dog Terry’s heals.  I couldn’t help but observe the different postures and stances required to become aware of the plethora of fungi.  I needed to look more closely at the forest floor, the rotting logs and the rock faces which requires stooping, crouching and at times being still.    I also noticed how Terry was not just “looking” for mushrooms but was in fact taking in the immediate surroundings and conditions.  Which type of tree is growing in this location- hemlock or cedar?  What material is decomposing below the tree?  What are the specific temporal conditions such as light, moisture and  temperature of this area?  He is noticing an entire ecology- a series of systems-not just the fruit of an organism.  Despite this cultivated awareness, Terry still describes the unpredictability of this organism.   All of the conditions can appear to be correct and yet nothing is to be found.

Terry stopped at one point to show us a type of fungus on a leaf.  He explained that scientists still don’t understand of the spores of this fungus move from the leaves on the ground to the leaves in the trees.  “We can observe the gross results but not the micro processes of these systems.”