The week of midterms is over and I am ready to have some real experience in the world around me and to relax, to be outside and get some nature cure in my life. The annual mushroom conference at Breitenbush is the perfect prescription.
We sleep in till 8 am, such a luxury! The air is crisp and after a filling breakfast we hurry to find a group to head out with. Dr. Tom Volk becomes our guide—he’s an interesting looking fellow from Wisconsin with shaggy bleached hair with blue streaks. He has been doing this trip for years and his lecture later this evening is highly anticipated.
Our group of ten drives to a little patch of old growth forest about 4 miles up the mountain from the hot spring. With very little introduction everyone spreads out into the forest. There are only two of us that have never done this sort of thing before. Experienced amateur mycologists are the majority of the participants at this conference. I tag alng with Dr. Volk and another mycology professor. They have an unstated mission in their minds: To find the exotic species. They are looking for those particular organisms that are only found in this very specially preserved ecosystem of the old growth temperate Pacific Northwest rain forest. I can feel their excitement and I am beginning to see the fungus all around us. The forest floor is littered with hundreds of species of mycorhizzal fruit. For the past decade, I have walked these old growth trails with as much regularity as I have been able to muster yet I never fully saw the abundance and diversity right under my feet. I have noticed the great variety of mushrooms but I have always integrated that into the larger experience of the forest. The native berries, the great giant trees, the native medicinal plants—these all distract my attention from the simple fact that there are worlds of living things in the magical layer of earth that is woven together by the fungus.
For the first two hours, we discover dozens of unique and lovely kinds of mushrooms. I don’t know any of them from each other and feel free to just observe their unique shapes, colors, smells and what I perceive as personality. They all seem interesting to me. I haven’t learned how to discard the useless and common ones yet.
The most important role of these organisms is of course that they break down and help recycle nutrients from the dead and dying to be reused by the new life. In Chinese medicine there is a long history of using mushrooms medicinally. Species such as cordyceps, reishi, and shiitake are well researched for their medicinal utility.
Mushrooms are a healthy food that is low in calories and fat, but high in protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals. Mushrooms also have antioxidant properties, can be hypocholesterolemic, hypoglycemic, prebiotic, hypotensive and hepatoprotective. Beta glucans, the major structural component of fungal cell walls has been found to stimulate both the innate and adaptive immunity of the host. They have a range of antitumor activies, such as stimulation of cytokine production. Some research shows a direct immunomodulatory and anti-tumor effect. (Mushrooms as Functional Foods, Cheung -2008)
We have some local species of medicinal mushrooms....more on those, Paul Staments and the excellent foraged meal I made next time...
