On February 22nd, our study group gathered about an hour away from Salem, in a small wooded conservatory called Miller's Woods. It had been below freezing for the past week and a scouting trip up to some higher elevation showed, there wasn't much fungi. So in a last minute decision we decided to walk the Miller's Woods.
We gathered at the park map to set our course and then the 5 of us set off to a path that led through the mixed forest of Oak, Alder and Douglas fir. We immediately noticed the wood-rotters, the Stereum sp.?, Trametes versicolor, and others fruiting on a few decomposing stumps. One stump had an interesting mat of velvety tissue on the top of the stump connected to the Trametes versicolor.
Our discussions led us to habitat identification where we found Claytonia perfoliata, or Miner's Lettuce. H.Y. told us that this plant gets its name from the Gold Rush era, where prospectors used to eat the leaves, high in vitamin C, to ward off scurvy. We also discussed the blossoming Lysichiton americanum, Skunk Cabagbage, the sprouting Bleeding Hearts and Fox Glove. As we passed over the wooden bridge, J.D. scouted the bank and found a gilled polypore growing out of the end of a rotting, moss covered branch.
Just a few steps later and our eyes tuned into our surroundings. We began seeing these little orange cups on the side of the hill by the trail. The more we looked, the more we found. There were hundreds of these little fungi and all of us got excited. We took photos, gathered specimens, and took our best guesses as to what they might be. The little 17mm cups, sitting on their rudimentary wrinkled stems were sitting in soil in this mixed Douglas fir forest. It had been pretty dry the previous week, but these spots were still very moist. Eventually, J.T. keyed them out to Geopyxis vulcanalis, or "Fairy Farts", with their smooth elliptical spores, in an 8 spore asci. The sulphur stench was unbelievable after we got them home and crushed them up a bit.
Continuing on our walk we found our beloved Clavulina rugosa and D.R. found a larger brown mushroom with white gills. We had all just studied the Entalomataceae family of fungi a few weeks ago, so our first thoughts were to place this in the Nolanea or Entaloma genera, but after keying this out D.R. found out this was Pluteus sp.?, or Deer Mushroom.
We looked in the mossy damp areas for the Scutellinia scutellata, but did not find any. Since our hour foray was over, we slowly headed back to our vehicles. But on the way J.D. went up to look at a little yellow fungi growing out of a tree and nearly stepped on a bunch of Helvella albella! I took some photos of this cute little saddle capped mushroom and gathered some specimens to look at microscopically.
After finding and discussing a few more specimens we said good bye to the woods and heading back to do our ID session and eat a well deserved lunch.
A few hours later we decided to go on another walk in Yamhill County and found Schizophyllum commune, Daedalea quercina, some Bird's Nest Fungi, more wood rotters, all the while keeping an eye out for the possible Morel. The Oak habitat seemed to be a perfect place to spot them, but it was still a bit too early in the season to find them.
Our little Myco-geek group, traveled three counties to study fungi and found some very interesting specimens to add to our winter observations in the Pacific Northwest.
