The Santa Cruz Mushroom Flush

I’ve always been curious about mushrooms, and yet, I’ve always found them intimidating.

In the course of my adult life, I’ve learned to identify wildflowers, evergreen trees, butterflies, tropical fish, woodland rodents, cold water kelp species—you name it. But mushrooms have remained mysterious, like the dark corner of the basement you just don’t want to explore.

I think this is a result of a couple of factors. One, we’ve identified over 14,000 species of mushrooms. That’s a big number—and every source I’ve read claims that number represents only a fraction of the mushroom species on Earth. 

Two, they’re not always out and about. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies (reproductive structures) of fungi. Not all fungi produce mushrooms, but the ones that do only produce them under certain conditions—and only for a few days a year, in good years.

Together, those realities have kept me from investing time and effort into learning about them. In short, I’ve been lazy.

But a number of other factors have recently encouraged me to get off my butt and get on the mushroom bandwagon. The first of these is the recent acceptance of the idea that fungi form amazing networks in the soil that facilitate communication and nutrient dispersal among tree species.

This concept, which is being referred to as the “wood wide web,” has been popularlized by books like Suzanne Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree and Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life. These authors describe how hyphae, underground filaments of fungi, grow into the roots of trees to form what is called mycorrhizae. At their most basic level, mycorrhizae allow the fungi to access some of the sugars made by the tree and, in turn, give nutrients back to the tree that they have processed from the soil.

But in addition to this basic symbiotic interaction, it appears that there are other molecules being passed through the mycorrhizal web—ones that communicate messages such as “a tree is under attack and its neighbors should prepare for a similar threat.” This reality is fascinating to me, and it gives me a far greater appreciation for the complexity of these organisms.

In the last eight years of living in Santa Cruz, CA, I have repeatedly heard rumors about the abundance of wild mushrooms here, but, until recently, I can’t say I’ve seen all that many. This fall, when I was in the Alps, I saw tons, and I started thinking more about them. Then, I came back to Santa Cruz in November only to find that my home was experiencing the best mushroom flush since I moved here. What timing!

Literally, every time I have gone mountain biking or running in the woods in the last month, I have seen somewhere between seven and thirty different types of mushrooms. This is without looking for them; after all, when I’m mountain biking and running, I’m often moving quickly, and I’m rarely focused on small things. When I actually stopped and looked around, I saw many, many more.

photo courtesy of Bridget Puchalsky

Then, I started seeing mushrooms outside the woods, too. I saw a huge colony in a small park just a block from my condo.

I saw the infamous and highly poisonous Amanita muscaria (also known as the fly agaric mushroom, the smurf mushroom, and the Super Mario mushroom) ten feet from the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor.

And a mushroom popped up under the hose bib I use to wash off my wetsuit booties after surfing. Clearly, something’s up, since mushrooms are literally everywhere this year.

I’ve heard a few theories suggesting that the August 2020 CZU fire—the one that burned 90,000 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains just above town—restored nutrients to the soil that had been depleted by years of fire suppression, encouraging the fruiting bodies’ emergence. I’ve been told, too, that our higher impact rain events have contributed to this flush.

And, of course, I’ve heard “We have no idea why some years are better than others!” Fair enough. Regardless of the cause, if there was ever a year to get into mushroom hunting in Santa Cruz, this is it.

So, I started by attending the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History’s mini Fungus Fair on a Saturday afternoon, where I got to tie-dye a bandanna using a fungus-based dye and stroll past a table of freshly collected—and freshly identified—mushrooms.

Then, I got to attend a mushroom walk hosted by the same museum a couple weeks ago. During it, I learned some important basics, like which questions to ask when you’re trying to identify a fungal fruiting body (beyond “what color is it?”)

Things like: Does it have gills underneath the cap or pores like a sponge (or ridges or even teeth)? Spongy mushrooms are often members of the bolete genus—one that has many edible members.

And: Does the cap bleed a milky substance if you pinch off a chunk of it? If so, it may be a species of Lactaria.

You also want to know if the cap has chunks of detritus attached to it (called “scales”; these are remnants of the veil that once enclosed the mushroom). The width of the stipe (stem) relative to the size of the cap is helpful, as is the presence or absence of an annulus, a ring, around the stipe (also a remnant of the veil).

It’s important as well to note what kind of surface the mushroom is growing on (wood? feces? soil?) and what kinds of trees are growing around it. Smell can be helpful, as can taste (in very small nibbles for the brave!) and texture.

In short, a little information goes a long way to making the mushroom ID book look a little thinner than it actually is.

(it’s 610 pages)

During my mushroom walk, in the process of hearing my companions shout out words I’d never heard before, I discovered that mushroom hunting has its own lexicon. Terms like peronate, cortinate, umbonate, infundibuliform, and decurrent.

Slowly but surely, I am learning some of these words. I know at least a handful of the big genera, and I’ve got small number of very common species that I can identify on sight. It’s not much when you know there are 14,000 species out there, but it’s a start.

I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions, but I suppose I can bend my policy and commit to learning five more species by the time the famous Santa Cruz Fungus Fair happens. It’s two weeks away, so my resolution doesn’t have to last long.

If I succeed, I’ll think I’ll treat myself to a fancy mushroom dish; supposedly there’s some good food to be had at the fair. Perhaps eating one will help me to create more symbiotic relationships in my world like the fungi do in theirs.

Now that would be really good New Year’s resolution.