On Sunday, November 15th, I took the family for a short little walk through the woods around Hagg Lake in Yamhill County, Oregon. Unfortunately, this was one of the first times this season that I was able to find the time to wander about in the woods (we just moved one week ago!).
The main flora in this primarily Douglas fir forest (with a small mixture of oak thrown in for good measure) were Russula, Suillus, Boletus, and LBM's. Now for the specifics.
The first mushrooms that were found at the trailhead after just parking the car were obviously Boletus of some sorts. One thing that I found helpful in initially learning mushrooms, was to focus primarily on the overall macroscopic features of the different mushroom genus's. A great book for doing this is How to Identify Mushrooms to Genus by David Largent and others (I believe this is now a series of six books). Because of the tremendous diversity of mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest, all screaming for identification, it's nice to be able to at least put a generic name on the mushrooms that have to be passed for the time being.
Since I'm currently trying to focus on the Boletes in this area, I picked several different sizes for later identification. The key features of these mushrooms were: 1) dark brown felt-like cap when young, changing to a lighter brown in age; 2) cap slightly fissured in age; red stains sometimes showing through the fissures, especially near the margin; 3) pores very small, dingy yellowish in color, with reddish tinge near the pore mouths, staining blue very quickly by touching them; 4) stem brown in color with very fine brown reticulations running down the entire length; deep red near the stem apex, in some cases running down over 3/4's of the length; most examples had a pronounced bulbous base; fine powdering of yellow mycelium at the base of the stem; 5) now it's time to find Arora's book Mushrooms Demystified, turn it over to the back cover, and there's the ruler! (almost worth the price of the book for the ruler alone); the six mushrooms I found ranged from 4-9 cm in cap width, and 3-7.5 cm stem length; 6) the cap flesh was thick, and a light yellow in color; 7) and finally, the spores were an olive brown in color.
By glancing through my copy of The New Savory Wild Mushroom by Margaret McKenny, I found on page two a picture of a mushroom that looked very similar to what I had found. On second glance though, it shows in the picture a mushroom with yellow on the top of the stem, and red below, just the opposite of all the examples that I'd found. In reading about the stem on page three though, it indicated that sometimes these colors are reversed. OK, let's go on. In reading through the entire description, Boletus chrysenteron could definitely be the mushroom that I'd found. It mentions that the Yellow-Fleshed Boletus is edible, and considered good by some people. Wait, it then states that a Zeller's Boletus is very difficult to distinguish from it (although primarily a moot point because both are edible and of equal quality). But I want to put a definitive name on this mushroom, so let's continue on.
Page four of this book shows a picture of a Boletus coniferarum that has the same color cap as some of the larger specimens, but there is no red on the stem in the pictures at all (amongst other differences). Stepping further through the boletes takes us to a picture of the closely related Boletus zelleri on page ten. In comparing the picture with my specimens, there appears to be quite a difference at first glance. First of all, mine aren't near as dark brown as these are, and secondly, the zelleri shows a pretty much evenly red stem, with little or no signs of fine brown lines that I have on mine. On to the description. After reading the description here, my specimens seem definitely closer to chrysenteron than zelleri. The caps are dark brown to light brown, not dark reddish brown to nearly black; the stems are primarily brown, or red with brown reticulations mixed in, not reddish or yellow streaked with red.
Let's check with another source to make sure of our identification. Now, where did I put that ruler with the mushroom descriptions. David Arora's book Mushrooms Demystified is primarily a key driven book with tons of mushrooms described from all around the United States (with a primary focus on the California mushrooms), as opposed to a picture driven book like the previous one with a focus on the most prevalent Pacific Northwest mushrooms.
Since I'm reasonably sure that this mushroom is a Boletus, let's jump right into the Boletus keys that start of page 512 of the second addition, or 412 on the first. If you don't have the second addition, even though you already own the first, please go out and buy it. It's definitely worth the price because of the expanded coverage. I'll wait until you return from your favorite book source to continue on... Now: it's not growing on earthballs, so let's go on to 2. I haven't tasted it yet so... nope, it's not bitter (kinda like a mushy marshmallow though); on to 3. Definitely growing on terra firma, skip to 7; I remember high school geography taught that Oregon is in western North America (good thing I didn't sleep through that class), onto 8; oh no, a slight dilemma. The pores were yellow, but there was a definite red tinge to the mouths. Since they were primarily yellow, let's keep our finger here and skip over to 15 for a first try. Nothing like the first couplet on 15, on to 16. My caps were dry, and the pores did blue, so skip to 17. Definitely sounds like the first one, let's skip to 18. I would go with the more conservative couplet number two on 18. Since I seriously doubt the flavor has changed over the last ten minutes I'll go with the 2nd couplet for number 22 and go to number 24. Look, familiar territory!
My caps were a dark brown to a light brown; not black, blackish-brown, or deep olive-gray (remember the picture in McKenny's book); onto couplet 25. Because my collection started out with mushrooms at 4 cm in width, and some of them (the larger ones) do have reddish flesh in the base of the stalk, I'll choose the next couplet. Because of the fact that we may have a 4 cm mushroom that is at a range that is smaller than that listed for B. fragrans, and because fragrans can apparently sometimes have reddish flesh in the base of the stalk, we'll need to check this description out also (as a possible longshot). Now, couplet 26 takes us to our Boletus chrysenteron, and, great, another choice. Although my specimens have some cracks with a light red tinge, the majority of the cracks have no red at all. I wouldn't call my specimens with bulbous based stalks exactly slender (I wouldn't call my wife slender if she had a bulbous base anyway -- errr well, on second thought, maybe I would). They are definitely under 9 cm broad, and... oh no, not the dreaded microscope! Yes, it appears that in order to successfully solve this mushroom puzzle I'm going to need to find a microscope and see if my spores are truncate (I may be in trouble here because I did sleep through my high school geometry class; exactly what is truncate?).
Although I will try to bring the microscopic piece to this puzzle in the next issue, let's go ahead and look at the description for these two mushrooms. First though, remember our finger being on couplet number 9 as an option? If we try to follow this line, we get another interesting result. 9 to 13, 13 to 14, and one of the options in 14 (Boletus mendocinensis) taking us over to the description of Boletus chrysenteron for further information. Now, on to the descriptions.
In the primary description of Boletus chrysenteron, it's interesting to note that there is no indication in Arora's description of there being any red tinge in the pore mouths at all, hmmm. Now in reading Arora's comments, it seems that we indeed have several more choices. Is it indeed chrysenteron with aberrant reddish tinged pore mouths? Tylopilus amylosporus is out because the spores aren't dark reddish-brown (yea; one down!); Boletus mendocinensis is listed as having pinkish to reddish pores (while the pore mouths are all definitely dull yellow with a reddish tinge, I wouldn't call the pores pinkish to reddish), so it's still a possible contender; and finally Boletus truncatus, which will have to wait for the microscope (I think we can rule out Boletus porosporus because some of the cracks are pinkish tinged).
Next level, even more dreaded than the microscope, the monograph (a monograph is a mycologists defintive view on a particular genus of mushrooms -- which may be different from another mycologists definitive view on the same genus!). But this will have to wait for the next issue also.
Meanwhile, back to the walk. I saw several Russula's that I've never taken the time to key out yet, but then I saw one with a dark maroon cap and wondered about the smell. After picking it and smelling the distinctive seafood odor, I was certain that I'd found a Russula xerampelina. You can find this mushroom in Douglas fir forests throughout the fall season. Look at McKenny on page 103, Arora on page 102 (color plate 14), audubon on page 707 (color plate 330), and Mushrooms of North America on page 85. I haven't personally eaten this mushroom although all the guides list it as edible, except for Mushrooms of North America, which says he didn't have information on it either way.
My wife was the next one to point out a group of distinctive, "stately" yellow mushrooms, Stropharia ambigua. Having keyed these out years ago, and since they're so distinctive, I had no need to take examples of these. I've always found these in late fall, and would rate them as common in oak woods this time of the year. You can see a great picture of this in Arora's book, color plate 89, with description on page 377. These are well worth checking out the oak woods to find yourself for their beauty, even though you probably wouldn't want to eat them. Arora quotes someone as saying that they taste like "old leaves".
Next my seven year old son, Andrew, spotted a very white mushroom with small (2.5 cm), plane shaped cap, slightly decurrent white gills, growing right on the side of the trail. When I got closer to the mushroom, I thought maybe I'd found my first identified Limacella; the thing was slimy! On picking it and looking at the gills, there was little doubt that it was one of the waxy caps (Hygrophorus, Hygrocybe, Camarophyllus). This one keyed out quickly, so take a look at page 104. Definitely jump right to couplet 2. It's white so go to 3. Definitely viscid, try 4 next. No yellow, on to 5. The cap was only 2.5 cm wide, so look at 6. Not conical, so let's look at the description of Hygrophorus eburneus. Look at page 119 for the description. Since this also had a slimy stem, looks like it must be the eburneus.
The last mushroom collected was another Suillus. They were growing right out of the road bank with small Douglas fir trees growing right alongside them. 1) pileal width 3.5-6 cm; 2) stipe length 4-6 cm; 3) pileal color, buff to light tan background color; 4) brown to slightly reddish brown fibrils over entire cap; 5) stem more or less equal, or with slightly enlarged base; 6) pores dull yellowish, irregularly shaped mouths, staining slightly brownish on touching; 7) flesh thick and light yellow; 8) stipe color light brown with darker brown colors over parts of the stem, some reddish coloration on stem also; some slight glandular dots at the very apex of the stem; pores leaving a decurrent look where they've pulled away from the apex of the stipe; 9) fibrillose stem; 10) spore print a yellowish olive color (it also left some yellow stains on part of the paper).
Again, starting with McKenny, we look at each of the Bolete pictures until we get to the one on page 19, Suillus lakei. The picture matches exactly in my opinion, and the description also fits. Since the only look alike mentioned here is Suillus caerulescens, which shows very few fibrils, it really appears to be the correct mushroom. Let's check out Arora's book, just to be sure.
Ring zone is present on these specimens, so I assume they had a ring at some point, go to 2. It does appear that there may be a few glandular dots on one of the older specimens, and it wasn't associated with pine, it was associated with Douglas fir, so lets go to 3. It doesn't fit the first couplet of number three at all, onto 4. Definitely has some fibrils, so we go to 5. Again, we're in western North America here, and it's under Douglas-fir. It again points to Suillus lakei, and going to the description on page 495, we see that we also have a color plate (124). The picture again matches extremely well, and in reading the description, I also find no real discrepancies. In fact, under the habitat section Arora mentions that it often fruits on roadbanks, which is where I'd found this specimen.
Let's double check the comment section now to see if there are any look-alikes to worry about. In addition to Suillus caerulescens and Suillus ponderosus which we needn't worry about because we have plenty of fibrils to tell them apart, we also need to check out Suillus cavipes, Fuscoboletinus ochraceoroseus, Suillus pictus, and Suillus decipiens. By looking at the color plates 122 and 123 we see that S. cavipes and Fuscoboletinus ochraceoroseus are quite a bit different. There is no picture of S. pictus here, but the description and habitat sets it apart (we can also look at The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms and on plate 391 we can actually see the differences). By virtue of the cap color, and the statement that it currently is found on the east coast (they've been known to move!), we can also rule out S. decipiens (if you really wanted to see a picture of this you could find The Boleti of Northeastern North America by Walter Snell and Esther Dick - 1970, and there it is on page 24).
Well, that includes our little forest excursion for this issue. Stay tuned next month as we check out the spores that we've taken on this outing under a microscope (especially the Boletus chrysenteron/truncatus specimens), and see if we can find any winter mushrooms growing at all.
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