FASCINATING WILD MUSHROOMS TO FIND THIS FALL

Don’t just look up at colorful leaves to find autumn beauty! Look down to found the treasures of autumn on the ground! Autumn is prime time for wild mushrooms! We’ve got some real gems to share with you, as well as some fascinating information about where to find them, how to identify them, and how they can add more healthful beauty to your life.

Wild mushroom treasures sprout from forest floors in every season, but fall is in many ways the best time. Now is when soil temperatures and moisture levels are just right for yielding a broad variety of mushroom and fungus bounty.

From forests, to woodlands, to parks, to empty lots, to your own backyard, wild mushrooms can be found all over the world. Beyond their physical beauty and their sumptuous unique flavors, edible wild mushrooms have recently been found to deliver important health benefits.

Wild mushrooms provide one of the best non-animal dietary sources of vitamin D, important for our metabolism of calcium, disease prevention and immune system support. Many species are also excellent sources of vitamins B & C.

Recent studies have found that wild mushrooms provide way more of the antioxidant ergothioneine than any other food as well as polyphenols that reduce cancer risk and offer anti-aging benefits.

Mushrooms also contain chitin, a non-soluble protein that improves both digestive and cardiovascular health. They are also rich in beta-glutan, a carbohydrate that can reduce cholesterol level and improve heart health.

Wildman Steve Brill offers comprehensive information and advice about wild mushroom hunting, gathering, identification, and cooking.

Also see Mushrooms Demystified, by David Aurora, and National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms, by Gary Lincoff, for excellent general guides.

Like gems, with a rainbow array of colors, wild mushrooms rise up from rich damp earth, pushing through blankets of moss and fallen leaves near the bases of trees - mostly pine and oak. Most appear after heavy rain. Some come up the next day, others a few days later.

Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of underground fungi. They exist to decompose organic waste matter and make it easier for trees to obtain minerals from the earth. Trees provide nutrients for the mushrooms which lack the power of photosynthesis.

Many mushrooms are edible and many are not -- some can kill you. As they say in Russian, “You can eat all mushrooms, but some only once.”

To hunt like a pro, you’ll need a sharp knife to slice the shrooms from their roots (aka mycelium), which you will want to leave growing underground so they can keep producing. You’ll want to gather your fragile harvest in baskets to allow their spores to fall to the ground and spread the wealth. Finally, a brush is handy to remove clinging soil.

Autumn mushrooms make beautiful subjects for macro photography, as their colors and textures come into fuller view.

Some forests offer a consistent bounty and are wonderful places to go mushroom hunting. We are sharing a few of our favorites below.

PACIFIC NORTHWEST -- OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON

Forests in the Pacific Northwest are perfectly suited for mushrooms and other fungi. Olympia and Capital Forest…  The range of mushrooms and fungi found here is especially diverse. There are thousands of fungi species growing here.

Look under the mature Douglas fir trees growing here to find gorgeous golden chanterelles and bright red lobster mushrooms. 

You can also hunt for exquisitely flavored deeply fluted morels, meaty boletes, delicate oyster mushrooms, Agaricus agustus, and shaggy manes, to name a few more. Young puffballs make tasty treats too.

While they’re pretty, don’t bite into the death caps, deadly parasols, fly agarics, poison pies, destroying angels, amd sweat-causing clitocybes that you are also likely to find.

You might join the South Sound Mushroom Club, which sets out on wild mushroom hunts each autumn.

ESTONIA

Forests in Estonia are riddled with Ectomycorrhizal mushrooms and fungi. Ectomycorrhiza is a coating that grows to form of symbiotic relationship between the mushroom or fungus and the roots of various plant species. Think truffles!

Estonian forests have the greatest varieties of mycorrhiza mushrooms. The oldest trees, such as pines, firs, and larches live in symbiosis with ectomycorrhizal mushrooms.

POLAND

Forests in Poland are mushroom wonderlands. Mushroom hunting is a big thing here -- it’s known as the “silent hunt.”

There’s plenty of ground to cover -- about 70% of the country is covered with forest. While you’re mushroom hunting, you’ll have the opportunity for a photo safari, as the forests are also home to protected wolves, bison, and other beautiful wildlife.

Check out the Siekarów Landscaped Park, nicknamed “The Land of 100 Lakes,” is a great place to start. The Puszcza Notecka Forest, with its vast swaths of pine, is another vast mushroom hunting ground.

Another great place to forage for mushrooms is Białowieża Forest, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. One of the last and largest remaining parts of the immense primeval forest that once stretched across the European Plain, it spans almost 550 sq mi (1,418.85 km2), straddling the border between Poland and Belarus.

Hike Ventures offers wonderful guided mushroom hunts in Poland. They know just where to find the best and most edible out there.

Read more about Beautiful Autumn in 10 Most Beautiful Fall Destinations, Our Hearts Beat Faster in Autumn. Our Minds & Bodies Change, Red Deer are More Beautiful Now! and Fall Leaves & Light Photos by Charlie Waite & Patrick Zephyr.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Mind/Body, Soul/Impact, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Arts/Design, and Place/Time, Daily Fix posts.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Paulina Ołowska. Courtesy of USTA Magazyn. Untilted. Wild mushrooms & fungi. Poland.
2. Image: by Patrick Schifferli. “The ousted pretender.” Geneva, Switzerland.
3. Image: by JJ Harrison. “Amanita muscaria, Tasmania, Australia.”
4. Image: by Karl Ander Adami. Untitled. Wild mushrooms.Estonia.
5. Image: by vlod007. “Mushrooms.” Białowieża Forest, Poland.
6. Image: Courtesy of Outdoor Gourmet Blogspot. “Chanterelles (cantharellus cibarius).” Olympia, WA.
7. Image: Courtesy of Exotichikes. “The Greens of Olympic National Park.” Olympia, WA.
8. Image: by Michael G. Halle. “Chanterelle.” Mt. Hood National Forest, Oregon.
9. Image: by Penn State. “Branched Oyster Mushroom.”
10. Image: by Ken-ichi Ueda. “Bunches of big, beautiful blewits out there.” Clayton, CA.
11. Image: by Stephen Downes. “Tallinn.” Estonia.
12. Image: by Matthijs Quaijtaal. “Mushrooms.” Estonia.
13. Image: by HikeVentures. “Hiking in Poland.” Poland.
14. Image: by Robert Powroznik. “Autumn in Forest.” Poland.
15. Image: by Tomasz Przywecki. “Puszcza Wkrzańska.” Puszcza Wkrzańska Forest. Poland.
16. Image: by Benjamin. “Pilze im Wald von Białowieża.”  Poland.
17. Image: by tomasz przechlewski. Untitled. Wild mushrooms. Poland.
18. Image: John Rensten, of Forage London. Untitled. Wild mushrooms. England, UK.
19. Image: by Zach Taiji. “Dungeness River, Washington.” WA.
20. Image: by BN App - Download now!
21. Image: by Ryane Snow. “Sarcoscypha coccinea.” Tomales Bay. Heart’s Desire Beach Woods.  Marin County, CA.