Our yard is blooming with dandelions. When the dandelions bloom, then I know it’s time to go morel hunting or wild asparagus picking. With so many acres burned in the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek fires last summer, I imagine the harvest pressure will be intense and indeed commercial pickers have been spotted.
Foraging for morels or wild asparagus brings out the inner child. It’s like a search for buried treasure with immediate reward. With each step the eye becomes more focused, scanning the earth for a clue. It becomes obsessive as you begin to home in on the subtle change in texture, height or silhouette of the cap or stalk. Then out of the corner of your eye, you focus in like a hawk, squat down, and jackpot! Look again, left, right. Holy smokes, you hit the motherload, little caps or sprouts all around … oh shoot, you are standing on two, squishing them!
A broader range of scientists beyond forest mycologists are starting to really take interest to understand mushrooms and fungus. I can’t begin to give this life form justice, but what I know is that there is a vibrant, vivid and sophisticated life underground and we are only beginning to decipher it. The life of fungi is so diverse, so hidden, and so prolific — it’s mind-blowing. They literally serve as communication networks between trees, allowing trees to communicate with chemical signals through the forest, transferring nutrients from the forest floor to the canopy. The psychological benefit of hallucinogenic mushrooms is becoming more well recognized in the medical community as a valid therapy to treat mental health. There is much to learn.
The mysterious life of fungi has captivated the minds of people from time immemorial, making their way into folklore. From the homes of gnomes to spiritual quests, mushrooms have enchanted cultures with power of poison and sought-after cures. Such is the case with fairy rings, the circular fungal patches found in lawns. Detested by greenskeepers on golf courses where they often created burned out patches that don’t hold water, these circular fungal growths have mystified people for ages. Some legends allege the inner ring is the realm of the pixies and elves while their dancing imprints the circular pattern.
There are varying scientific explanations of fairy rings. Some rings are feeding on underground organic matter from an old tree. Some are using up nutrients and water and expanding outward, leaving depleted soil in the middle. Some produce caps, or mushrooms in ring, some do not. Unlike our delicious morels, they are not edible.
Each year I have fairy rings that emerge in the spring. It’s a welcome return to an underground ecosystem that I dare not interfere too much. Who knows if that fairy ring is feeding the birch tree in our yard, harnessing important nutrients and passing them on? Who knows if it’s providing an underground home for insects that help aerate the soil? Who knows, maybe the elves are dancing? Either way, I let them be and ponder the mystery, thankful science will let me know when to care or not.
