Volume 14, Number 2
June, 1997

CONTENTS

1) MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT by Bill Blank
2) UPCOMING WMS EVENTS
3) TENTATIVE FALL FORAY SCHEDULE
4)WILD MUSHROOM FESTIVAL AT UW-WAUKESHA
5) WISCONSIN MYCOLOGICAL SOCIETY DINNER by John Fetzer
6) APRIL MOREL LECTURE by Peter Vachuska
7) MAY MOREL FORAY by Chuck Soden
8) WMS MEMBER WINS NSF FELLOWSHIP
9) BOOK REVIEW: IN THE COMPANY OF MUSHROOMS: A BIOLOGIST'S TALE by ELIO SCHAECTER, reviewed by Colleen Vachuska
10) FUNGI-GROWN CLOTHES IN ENGLAND by Marilyn Shaw
11) MYCO-BRIEFS by Colleen Vachuska
12) LUNGWORT BREAD by Horace Kephart via Jay Kempinger
13) ENTIRELY TOO MANY CORTINARII by Steve Nelsen
14) RECIPE: MUSHROOM QUICKBREAD by Joanne Pasek

I'm in the woods and have located a bountiful flush of wild mushrooms. Oh! What a site brimming with chanterelles; just like the time I found an area where a large number of black trumpets were fruiting. Here I'll describe the location of both of these places. It was right off the path about a quarter of a mile in, near a stump. Oh, well I guess I don't really know exactly where it is. I could have gathered a bunch of rocks in a pile to mark the location (too much work) or paced off the footsteps from the trail or even spray-painted a tree nearby. The problem is since so many trees are tagged this way I would get confused. I may as well raise my hands into the air and wait for a sign.

In the 90's that sign may come from a global positioned satellite orbiting in a geosynchronous path around the earth. There are some problems though. Not all GPS units work in dense forest, and you need to carry a topographic map along to use the latitude and longitude positions that are beamed down from the satellite. Now the newer units promise they'll work under trees.

Electronic gadgets aside, some mushroom spots seem to disappear the moment you leave them. The trees fall over and the brush covers the trail. I guess a lot of wild mushrooming is like this. Nothing can match the excitement of walking halfway through a patch of 50 morels and only then seeing the first one. Maybe they'll never be there again. Maybe I won't if I don't replace these batteries . . . . Good hunting.

June 21 -- Annual Picnic Business Meeting, Falk Park in South Milwaukee; socialization starts at 4 p.m. (Members should have received an announcement for this already.)

July 26 -- Midsummer Foray; meet at John Steinke's farm at 9:00 a.m. and caravan to the foray location. (announcement enclosed with this newsletter)

August 17 -- Photography Foray

September 6 -- Mauthe Lake, North Kettle Moraine
September 13 -- Devil's Lake State Park
September 20 -- Pike Lake State Park
September 27 -- Greenbush Trail, North Kettle Moraine
October 4 -- Point Beach State Forest

Mark your calendar for Sunday, 21 September 1997 and plan to attend or help with a fungi fest. This event will be a celebration of wild mushrooms and all other fungi sponsored by the Wisconsin Mycological Society and the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha. Alan Parker, WMS board member and professor at UW-Waukesha, will be the coordinator. The purposes of this festival are to promote the Wisconsin Mycological Society (all the great benefits of being a member) and to educate the general public about Wisconsin's fungal diversity. The focal point of the festival will be an as- large-as-possible exhibit of fresh fungi - everything and anything people can collect and bring in late Saturday or early Sunday. A good deal of help could be used collecting in many different sites and supervising the WMS booth and other displays. No experience necessary!! If the weather cooperates, we should be able to show people a lot of interesting fungi and teach people of all ages about the wonders of fungi. There will also be four or five mini-lectures during the day. If you'd like to help in any way, please call Alan Parker - Home: 542-7688 Office: 521-5495.

If you weren't there, you really missed it!

About 45 WMS members gathered for the unofficial start of the 1997 mushroom season by visiting with Chef Scott McGlinchey at the Heaven City Restaurant just outside of Mukwonago. As in the past, Chef Scott promised to provide us with a meal consisting of several courses using the available mushrooms of the season. Available means cost effective here, since morels were “available”, but cost prohibitive.

During the reception, platters of “button” mushrooms were served as appetizers while people gathered in the lounge area -- a nice touch. A seasoned and garlicky mushroom cap was served warm, while a pickled version was served cold. Both provided a quick peek into the evening ahead.

As I describe the next five courses, I will also highlight the wine that accompanied the dish.

I) Oven Roasted Shiitake Mushrooms Stuffed with Bresse Blue Montrachet and Shiitake Oil
Wine: Toad Hollow Chardonnay, 1996 (California)

Oven roasted shiitake mushroom caps were topped with a blue goat cheese from Watertown, WI. A good start to the meal, although many thought there was too much cheese and not enough mushroom caps. What would you expect from a bunch of mushroom lovers?

II) Tamales Huitlacoche with Yellow Mole' Sauce
Wine: Robert Mondavi Fume Blanc, 1995 (Napa Valley)

A nice presentation of a tamale which included light green and yellow chili peppers, the sauce was a bit on the hot side according to some, while I thought it was a nice counterpoint to the tamale. Somewhere along the line, Chef Scott mentioned a corn smut being a part of this recipe, but I wasn't sure where or how -- sorry.

III) Seasonal Greens with Smoked Oyster Mushrooms, Raspberry Vinaigrette, and Enoki
Wine: Firesteed Pinot Noir, 1995 (Oregon)

A nice collection of greens, including dandelion leaves, were lightly splashed with a tart raspberry vinaigrette. A nice clump of smoked oyster mushrooms were centrally located on the plate, with a garnish of Enokis on the side. The oysters were smoked on site at Heaven City and provided a nice smoky flavor and a texture to compliment the greens.

IV) Grilled Portabella Mushroom on Caramelized Onions with Crimini Gravy, Saffron Potatoes and Asparagus
Wine: Fetzer Barrel Zinfandel, 1994 (Mendocino County)

The “main” course was truly something to enjoy. If you have not grilled portabella mushrooms at home, it is something you really have to try. The Portabella is known as the “steak of mushrooms”, and when served with the caramelized onions it was difficult to remember this was a mushroom you were enjoying. The Crimini mushrooms in the gravy were the “little” brothers to the nice-sized Portabella in the middle of the plate.

V) Shiitake Pecan Beggar's Purse on Fresh Fruit Puree
Wine: Geyser Peak Shiraz Vintage Port (Henry's Reserve), 1994 (Geyerville)

Chuck Soden says this was the highlight of the entire meal. Phyllo-wrapped shiitakes (sauteed a bit longer to become a bit dry and crunchy) along with a hint of chocolate and pecans were drizzled with a fresh berry sauce.

While I am no wine connoisseur, I enjoyed the wine selections provided with each course. When someone knows what they are doing, a wine becomes an integral part of the recipe of the meal.

And before you knew what was happening, it was all over.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Chef Scott McGlinchey for making this another mushroom meal to remember, and apologize if I did not get all the right ingredients or include the different subtleties of his recipes in my review. I hope we can do this again next year, and would like to see more of you join us.

On April 23 Alan Parker presented a slide show called “May is for Morels, a Spring Ritual in Wisconsin” to more than thirty WMS members. Alan Parker is a mycologist at the University of Wisconsin -- Waukesha and an avid connoisseur of morels. He stepped us through where to look and when to look for these delicacies. He looked at the different species of Morchella that one may find regionally and how to distinguish them, emphasizing M. esculenta, the most highly prized species, which is almost always found in association with dead elm. Color and size variations in M. esculenta and reasons for such were addressed as well as more pragmatic issues such as how to clean and preserve them. He also shared a few `tricks of the trade' -- what morel hunters should and shouldn't do.

Other spring fungi were discussed as well as `look-alikes' and related members of the families Helvellaceae and Morchellaceae. For anyone wanting to learn more about morels or their relatives, Dr. Parker strongly endorsed Nancy Smith Weber's book A Morel Hunter's Companion. Since Parker has an interest in the American history of mycology, he slanted his presentation this way, showing us plates of Jackson, Peck and Krieger and discussing the early guides' treatment of morels. A more general review of current field guides was also given. Finally he gave an overview of some of the festivals held in celebration of the humble morel and a look at some of the morel culture in the midwest.

There were many questions and both the speaker's and the audience's enthusiasm lasted well past the slide show's close.

May 17th seemed early for morels considering the cold spring. The morels spotted earlier in the week had been small.

Thirtysome souls spread out and began collecting soon after we arrived at the collecting site. We had a mixture of skill levels ranging from the first time out to professionals who collect daily when the season is on. We had members from Appleton and Madison spend the day hiking and enjoying the weather while in search of morels.

Alan Campbell (and his younger set of eyes, Linda) was the first to find several morels in a field near the edge of some small trees. This team did the best of everyone with approximately two to three dozen found by the end of the day.

It was early in the season and most morels were on the edges of fields or on south-facing hills. Most everyone found several, at least enough for a taste. I think Tula was having hers with eggs.

I think the crowning part of the day was when Karl Vachuska, the newest member of the Wisconsin Mycological Society, showed up. Weighing in at 7 lb 15 oz and three days old he seemed content to just watch. His father Peter will be able to spend many years training him in the fine art of morel collecting. Maybe in 10-15 years, Dad'll be able to collect at the bottom of the hills while Karl scouts the tops. Could this be part of the mystique of morel hunting, passing secrets on to new generations?

The March WMS meeting featured an excellent lecture on Armillaria and Entoloma, which will be reported on in the next issue of our newsletter. The person who gave the lecture, Daniel L. Lindner Czederpiltz, has been awarded a 1997 National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. Dan is a second-year graduate student in Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research project, conducted under the joint supervision of Prof. Glen Stanosz of the Department of Plant Pathology and Dr. Harold Burdsall of the USDA Forest Products Lab Center for Forest Mycology Research, focuses on comparing the diversity of wood-inhabiting aphyllophoroid fungi in northern hardwood stands that have different management histories. Dan was also awarded a 1996 University Fellowship from the Graduate School and the 1997 Riker Award from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. He entered the graduate program in Plant Pathology in May 1996 after earning his BS in Botany at UW-Madison. (taken from Inoculum, newsletter of the Mycological Society of America, June 1997) Congrats to Dan from the WMS!

This is a charming new book written to entice and invite the reader into the wide world of mushrooms. Its author is Elio Schaecter, an Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at Tufts University School of Medicine. However, though his biology background certainly enhances his perspective, Schaecter did not write this book primarily as a professional biologist. He first became interested in fungi as many people do -- as a source of food -- but along the way he found that mushroom hunting is satisfying for many other reasons and he tries to share his enthusiasm in this book. As he says in the prologue: “Going on a mushroom walk fulfills all sorts of other yearnings besides the gratification of foraging for natural food. I am excited by the zest of the hunt, challenged by the demands of identification, pleased by the encounter with species that have a special meaning to me, and charmed by especially handsome specimens.”

In the Company of Mushrooms is neither a field or identification guide nor a technical monograph, but tries to touch on some of the many different ways that fungi can be of interest to us. To this end, the book treats a variety of topics under four broad headings: the history and biology of fungi; the art of collecting mushrooms; culinary aspects of mushrooms; and the diverse roles of nonedible fungi in nature and human affairs. Several chapters are devoted to each of these four parts. I especially liked the beginning chapters of the book which give interesting historical bits of information about the study of fungi and which also try to explain the biology of fungi in laymen's terms.

The second part of the book introduces the reader to the world of foraying, either in woods or on lawns. This part, which discusses some commonly encountered genera of mushrooms, should be read with the help of a field guide for reference. Though the book contains some line drawings and a few color photographs, most of the mushroom species mentioned are not pictured. Looking at pictures of those species in a field guide would undoubtedly help the reader who is not yet familiar with many kinds of mushrooms.

I'd highly recommend this book for fungal novices as a friendly introduction to mycology. It is written in the warm, leisurely style of many excellent books of the past: it conveys enough information to inform but not overwhelm the reader, and gives that information enough personality to interest the reader in the subject. At the same time, most of the book would still be of interest to a person who is more familiar with fungi because Schaecter's personal anecdotes and thoughtful observations make for quite pleasant reading.

The 280-page book is published by Harvard University Press (phone 1-800-448-2242) and is available in hardcover for $24.95 + shipping.

According to a study in Country Living, a British magazine (date of issue unknown), one Amy Llewellyn of Dorset has discovered a new use for fungi: Grown Clothes.

Amy is a knitter who became disenchanted with wool because of the pain inflicted on a sheep during the shearing process. She first switched to flax and hemp for her jerseys (sweaters), in natural colors to avoid the toxic waste products associated with any kind of dyeing process. In fact, she wanted to avoid any kind of waste at all, including that from cutting fabrics and yarns. The revolutionary thought: “What if you could grow a jersey?”

She had noticed the lovely soft grays and greens of molds in the “larder.” With assistance from the Mycology Department at Imperial College, she eventually found an attractively colored fungus that forms mycelium with a strong cellular structure. The rest is history. Unfortunately, the name of the fungus is not available (at least not in this article).

The first step in the Grown Clothes process is to make a papier mache mold on her customer's torso. Next, a culture medium is spread on the mold. (Actually, it is not quite clear from the article whether the culture is spread on the mold or the torso, but this is a family publication.) The resulting inoculated form is placed for four or five days in the cool dark cellars of the converted mill in which she works. The mycelial mat is then peeled off the form and left in running water to “ret.” This process removes the softer parts, leaving the stronger, long fleecy filaments behind. The result is a Wedgewood green to gray fiber somewhat like angora wool.

Demand has grown and Amy now has two employees-a full-time cast stripper, and a part-time culture mixer. This gives her time for more research. She has found yellow and red fungal growths and seems particularly excited about “a purple on the plate of baked beans the children left in the treehouse.” The brilliant royal blue in an organic Stilton cheese produced in Leicestershire is intriguing, but unfortunately, “it won't take wear, and I want to produce clothes for living in, not cocktail dresses.”

• Mike Hanley, a bowhunter from Kickapoo, won the second annual Illinois State Open Morel Hunting Championship held on May 3, 1997 at Crooked Knee Golf Course in Marshall County. Hanley won this event by collecting 201 morels in two hours. Interestingly, in last year's contest, Hanley came in second, while the winner, Phil Garibaldi of Joliet, was also a bowhunter. Perhaps because of the cool spring we've been having, last year's numbers were better than this year's. In the 1996 morel hunt, Garibaldi grabbed 293 morels in only 1-1/2 hours, while runner-up Hanley collected his entire find of 223 from the earth around a single decaying elm tree. In other morel numbers reported by Tom Nauman of Morel Mania in Magnolia, Ill.: this year's largest morel weighed 1 pound 4.4 ounces and filled a shoebox near Alton. (John Husar, Chicago Tribune, May 14, 1997)

• A fungus, Aspergillus niger, can be effectively used for cleaning contaminated ash from incinerating municipal waste. The fungus produces citric acid which extracts toxic metals such as lead, zinc, copper and cadmium from the ash. The decontaminated ash can be used for making building materials, and the metals can be recycled. However, there are some disadvantages to using the fungus. The cost of adding glucose, which is necessary for the survival of the fungus, is high. Aspergillus/ also leaches very low amounts of nickel from ash. (New Scientist, Nov. 16, 1996, quoted from INFOTRAC electronic database)

On the bark of maples, and sometimes of beeches and birches, in the northern woods, there grows a green, broad-leaved lichen variously known as lungwort, liverwort, lung-lichen, and lung-moss, which is an excellent substitute for yeast. This is an altogether different growth from the plants commonly called lungwort and liverwort---I believe its scientific name is Sticta pulmonacea. This lichen as partly made up of fungus, which does the business of raising dough. Gather a little of it and steep it over night in lukewarm water, set near the embers, but not near enough to get overheated. In the morning, pour off the infusion and mix it with enough flour to make a batter, beating it up with a spoon. Place this “sponge” in a warm can or pail, cover with a cloth, and set it near the fire to work. By evening it will have risen. Leaven your dough with this (saving some of the sponge for a future baking), Let the bread rise before the fire that night, and by morning it will be ready to bake.

It takes but little of the original sponge to leaven a large mass of dough (but see that it never freezes), and it can be kept good for months.

Cortinarius is a gigantic genus of forest mushrooms, all of which are considered to be mycorrhizal by Moser. The cortina of the name is a curtain of cobwebby tissue which stretches from the rim of the cap to the stem, covering the gills in the button state (it sometimes disappears entirely by maturity). Other mushrooms which have partial veils which appear to me to sometimes be more or less cobwebby occur in Hebeloma, Inocybe, and Psathyrella, as well as Hygrophorus speciosus var. kaufmanii. Cortinarius spores are cinnamon to rusty brown in mass, and distinctly warty to smooth. Kaufmann quotes Fries as writing “No genus is more natural or more sharply differentiated from others ... experienced persons can distinguish them by their habit at first glance.” Perhaps in many cases, but I still get plenty confused with some. Kaufmann made the first attempt to describe the Great Lakes species, and has over 130 in his 1918 book which is available through a Dover reprint. Any book with enough Cortinarius in it to have much hope of describing one that is in your hand (and Smith estimates that there might be >600 species in North America, which is a large factor bigger than the number of species in any book I have seen) has the genus divided into more easily handled pieces. How this is done has varied. To summarize, five to nine groupings are usually made [just a few representative species appear in brackets]:

I. Subgenus Myxacium: viscid cap and stem (when young and in damp weather; dries “varnished”-shiny). [ trivialis, collinitus, cylindripes] IIa. Subgenus Phlegmacium: viscid cap (dries shiny), dry stem, which may have a club-like (“clavate”) basal bulb. [ balteatus, mutabilis, claricolor, crassus, atkinsonianus]. IIb. Subgenus Bulbopodium (or Phlegmacium section Scaurus): the cap is pressed into the top of the bulb in the button stage, and leaves a flange at the top of the bulb (“marginate”). Very well marked in some examples, but there is basically a continuum of bulb type, and many people no longer separate Bulbopodium. [ calyptrodermis, aggregatus, michiganensis, purpurascens, calochrous, corrugatus] III. Subgenus Dermocybe: dry cap and stem, cap surface smooth whitish to silky to fibrous/felty, usually rather small, no bulb on the stem, and gills brightly colored. [ croceofolius, cinnabarinus, cinnamoneus, semisanguineus]. Dermocybe is often raised to a separate genus. IVa. Subgenus Cortinarius sensu restricto (part of subgen. Inoloma or Cortinarius): includes only Cort. violaceus and its very close relatives, with deep violet colors throughout and a dry felty-scaly cap and stem. IVb. Subgenus Leprocybe (part of subgen. Inoloma or Cortinarius): dry cap and stem, cap velvety to feltey-scaley, with colors in the olivaceus or yellow-orange-reddish range, and fluorescent pigments present. [ bolaris, gentilis, callisteus] IVc. Subgenus Sericeocybe (part of subgen. Inoloma or Cortinarius): dry cap which is smooth to silky (or even scaly), stem usually bulbous, colors in the bluish-violet to brownish range. [ alboviolaceus, subargentatus] Va. Subgenus Telamonia: hygrophanous dry cap, smooth to fibrillose, veil collapsing onto the stem, which may be bulbous. [ armillatus, torvus, evernius, hinnuleus, distans] Vb. Subgenus Hydrocybe: smallish, hygrophanous dry cap, stem naked to subannulate. There is no sharp line separating them from Telamonia, and these are combined in most more recent treatments. [ nigrellus, brunneus] I usually get stuck in trying to identify Cortinarius at the subgenus level (if not before!); Phillips puts a few species in different subgenera than does Kaufmann, which is not comforting. Separation of species depends heavily upon the initial gill (and veil) color, making identification usually hopeless unless buttons as well as mature specimens are in hand, and microscopic characters that I am not very good at finding are also important. I was pleased to find a description of a little Hydrocybe we have found several times at Wyalusing State Park in early May as vernalis Hry. in Moser (although whether it is identical with the European species I have no idea). Most Cortinarius come relatively late in the season, and I had despaired of ever finding this spring species. Baxter's Hollow is a good spot for Cortinarius, but almost any woods will produce something if the weather in the fall is wet enough. The American species Cort. corrugatus Peck was put in Bulbopodium, but has only a small bulb which is not marginate. It seems fairly common, is easy to identify from the distinct furrows in the cap, and I am always pleased to see a Cortinarius I can recognize. McIlvaine pronounces it “not to be despised” for eating, which is faint praise indeed from him! C. violaceus is on Smith's 1968 list of best edible fungi, and McIlvaine agrees that it is the best Cortinarius. The orange-gilled Dermocybes are especially bewildering, and I have no idea how to identify them to species, especially after reading the descriptions of several of them.

• 2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
• 1-1/3 cups sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 1/3 cup precooked mushrooms
• 3 large eggs
• 1 Tbsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease two 8-1/2 x 4-1/2 x 2-5/8 inch loaf pans. Line bottoms with waxed paper. Grease paper and dust with flour.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. With electric mixer at low speed, beat until well-blended. Add mushrooms to milk and in blender, food processor, or hand-held blender, blend to cut up mushrooms fine but not too fine. Add milk, mushrooms, eggs, and vanilla. With mixer at low speed, beat just until dry ingredients are blended and evenly moistened. With mixer at medium speed, beat just until batter is smooth, about 15 seconds. Divide batter evenly between prepared pans.

Bake 35-40 minutes or until cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean. Let cool in pans on wire rack 10 minutes. Run knife around edges of loaves; turn out onto racks. Turn upright; let cool completely.

Makes two loaves.

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