WINDSOR — Human interest in wild mushrooms may derive from different origins. Some people may have culinary motives, while others may be foraging enthusiasts. Sometimes a person just has questions about a colorful, oddly shaped fungus while taking a seasonal hike.
This was the case on Saturday morning in Windsor, when 19 people joined mushroom foraging expert Ari Rockland-Miller on a wild mushroom tour along the hiking trails of Paradise Park in Windsor to learn strategies and safety tips for foraging for edible wild mushrooms, some of nature’s highly coveted but elusive delicacies.
“I love to eat them,” said Marsha Wayler, a retired dietician from Ludlow, Vt.
“They have a wonderful taste as well as health benefits. But I am a little nervous about going out on my own and picking them.”
The two-hour educational walk, organized by the Southeast Chapter of the UVM Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners, drew a diverse group of participants, ranging in ages, backgrounds and interests, who shared at least one particular interest: They each wanted to learn more about wild mushrooms.
Lebanon resident David Sczlowski, 65, said he has no interest in eating wild fungus but has wanted to learn more about the various mushrooms he finds outdoors.
“I like mushrooms, but I go to a grocery store for that,” Sclzowski said. “You see in a lot of murder mysteries that they kill people with mushrooms, so I’m a little shy about picking them myself.”
Melanie Campbell, education coordinator for the Master Gardeners Southeast Chapter, which serves communities in Windsor and Windham counties, said the group hosts a variety of educational programs related to horticulture, from lesser-known vegetables to new invasive species like the Asian jumping worm, though this wild mushroom walk is the group’s first in-person workshop since the pandemic.
“There is such a curiosity about mushrooms,” Campbell said, emphasizing the wide variety of shapes and colors over the course of the growing season.
This was one of the last weekends of the foraging season for fall mushrooms, Rockland-Miller said.
A few excellent edible mushrooms remain, such as Lion’s Mane, a fibrous, “toothy” variety that grows on hardwood logs, particularly Beech trees; or porcini or king bolete, a meaty brown capped mushroom that typically grows on the forest floor near spruce or hemlock trees. But overall the mushrooms are becoming less diverse, and finding quality mushrooms is becoming increasingly difficult as autumn leaves accumulate on the forest floor.
Still, the dwindling gourmet selection did not seem to dampen the enthusiasm at the event, as participants found a wide array of mushrooms and fungi around them, bringing new discoveries to Rockland-Miller for analysis.
The vast majority of findings were “inedible,” whether due to their natural traits, the risk of being confused with a possibly poisonous look-a-like or their age or condition. A number of mushrooms in the bolete family, for example, were waterlogged or riddled with parasitic insects.
Several were ones that Rockland-Miller would categorize simply as “little brown mushrooms,” which the mushroom expert said to avoid entirely, given that some are “very deadly” while most of the non-poisonous ones are not edible.
Near the end of the hunt, the participants finally found a specimen worth harvesting: a very healthy lion’s mane growing in the trunk of a decaying beech stump.
Rockland-Miller said that Paradise Park is an ideal ecosystem for mushroom foraging, especially during the summer months or even in September, given the variety of hardwood trees.
Many participants said that simply looking for mushrooms completely changed their awareness of what surrounded them and “what they see.”
“It changes not just the way you look at mushrooms, but how you look at the forest,” said Master Gardener member Peg Solon, of Ascutney.
Patrick Adrian can be reached at (603)542-0324 or at padrian@vnews.com.