It was another splendid day here in the reserve, and we couldn't resist a mushrooming foray on such an exceptional day: blue sky, gentle breezes, temperatures in the low 50's ... there's a lot to love about such conditions late in November on the southern Oregon coast!
Chanterelles in the base of the bowl complement
the forced paperwhites on our Thanksgiving table.
What we have noticed that's different this year is that our usual collection points are not producing as well as would have been predicted, while places previously known for being sparsely populated mushroom spots have been offering up a host of edible fungi. We've also been astonished by the early fruiting of cauliflowers and hedgehogs, two mushrooms that we don't typically encounter here in the reserve until after the first frosts.
Regarding the mushroom season in other areas of the PNW: We were quite interested to receive David Winkler's (of the website MushRoaming) recent mailing which included the following summary of the Pacific Northwest Mushroom season. We decided to duplicate it on this post because it gives another and noteworthy view of the mushroom season outside of the reserve:
We had an alright mushroom season in Western Washington, frosts have terminated the mountain mushroom mating season, but the low lands are only lightly frozen during clear nights. This kind of radiation frost does not impact the fungus in the forests, mushrooms there are protected from the tree canopy. Mushroom picking on the Eastern slopes of the Cascades was pretty meager, although the late summer and fall rains were sufficient. It seemed like the trees were so stressed from the extreme summer heat and a long drought that they did not hand over enough sugar to their fungal friends that they felt encouraged to fruit. A similar situation seemingly is plaguing California right now, which finally enjoys some rains, but the mushrooms are still holding back.
Given this report from Mr. Winkler's perspective, we are once again reminded what a privilege it is to be at home on the south coast.
No matter where you call home - Washington, California, Oregon, wherever - we hope that you've been enjoying the annual feast that the forest floor gives to us so freely and generously, and are giving thanks for all that fruits.