Mushroom hike in Sierra foothills proves mind-expanding. ‘Without fungi, nothing would grow’ | Opinion
Aside from herbal remedists and picky pizza-eaters, most of us are unlikely to give mushrooms a second thought.
Christopher Bivins is pursuing mushrooms (“mycology” is the scientific branch) as a field of study. Accompany the UC Merced graduate student for a couple hours while he leads a group of mushroom-gatherers in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and your thinking won’t be the same.
“Fungi are key players in every single ecosystem they inhabit,” Bivins said before listing several examples. Mushrooms break down decomposing organic matter, form mutually beneficial relationships with living trees, control populations of plants and insects, and provide scientists with source materials for antibiotics.
“Without fungi we’d literally have nothing living around us right now. We’d be miles and miles deep in dead organic matter, and nothing would be growing.”
Considering Bivins made that statement while standing on a green patch of earth beneath the branches of a lush oak tree as two hawks carved the blue sky overhead, mushrooms must be doing their jobs. And thank goodness for that.
My own appreciation for fungi has never been greater following a recent mycology hike at the McKenzie Table Mountain Preserve, one of more than 30 outings, classes and events offered this spring by the Sierra Foothill Conservancy.
The nonprofit land trust owns 10 preserves in the foothills of Fresno, Madera, Merced and Mariposa counties that are closed to the public except for rare occasions such as Saturday’s (March 8) open house at the 2,960-acre McKenzie Preserve at 22477 Auberry Road, a 20-minute drive from north Fresno and Clovis. Hours are 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Over the years I’ve visited the McKenzie Preserve numerous times, usually en route to the volcanic tabletops (a fairly strenuous hike) while looking out for wildflowers and enjoying the natural landscape.
Mushrooms are an easily overlooked part of that landscape. But not to people like Bivins, a Bullard High graduate who studied botany at San Francisco State, received a master’s degree from Fresno State and is pursuing a doctorate at UC Merced.
“Fungal science in the Sierra Nevada foothills is really, really understudied,” he said in an excited tone. “One of the first things I realized is there is so much we don’t know.”
Some are highly toxic
Before the group set out, Bivins went over a few basics, including a general reminder that several specimens we were likely to find were poisonous. Touching toxic mushrooms with your hands is OK – just don’t pop them in your mouth and swallow.
This is especially smart advice in the California foothills, where a species of mild-tasting edible mushrooms common to oak forests named amanita constricta bears close resemblance to poisonous family members amanita phalloides and amanita ocreata. Considering the latter two are ominously and respectively known as “Death caps” and “Western destroying angels,” identification mistakes can have terrible consequences to humans if ingested, including liver and kidney failure.
“It’s so beautiful, but it’s also the most toxic thing we could’ve found,” Bivins said after examining an amanita ocreata that someone collected.
Much more edible, even prized as food in certain cuisines, are an underground-growing subset of mushrooms called truffles. These aren’t easy to find (for obvious reasons), but there are clues on where to look.
Like certain types of mushrooms, truffles have a symbiotic relationship with tree roots in that they both benefit from the other’s presence. The fungi depend on the tree root for sugars or lipids, while the tree root receives water and soil nutrients from the fungi.
Digging for truffles
Bivins takes the group across a small creek and into a stand of interior live oaks that provide the best soil conditions in the area. (“This spot over here is pretty magical,” he says.) He pulls out a hand rake and after 30 seconds of digging extracts from the ground a brownish, pebble-sized ball he identifies as a melanogaster.
Melanogasters are yet another type of edible fungi, not technically truffles but often mistaken for them. Unlike truffles, which are said to smell like cured ham or vintage cheese, it gives off a fruitish, resiny odor.
In total, class members collected 20 species of mushrooms (a puffball and an earth star were the most unusual), plus two types of truffles and the melanogaster. That may sound like a lot but it’s less than half of what Bivins himself gathered on a previous visit that followed a recent storm.
Among the research projects Bivins is involved with is building a DNA sequence database of fungal species in the Sierra foothills, which offers plenty of room for pioneering discoveries.
“I am one of the first mycologists to study fungi in the southern Sierra foothills,” he said.
For information on Sierra Foothill Conservancy classes, hikes and events, go to sierrafoothill.org/events-listing/. Your mind might just be expanded.
