I no longer look at the hiking path while in the woods but instead find myself looking at the ground, along downed trees, stumps, mossy patches, in search of an under-appreciated kingdom of life: fungi.
When I registered for Tom Huber’s mycology class, I didn’t know what to expect; maybe I’d learn about some wild edibles and some taxonomy. Little did I know this class would change the way I look at the world. Mycology is an interdisciplinary topic that connected all of my classes at Paul Smith’s including dendrology, forest soils, sustainable communities, sustainable agriculture, and philosophy.
Mushrooms collected and identified the first day of class
The first day of class, everyone was buzzing with anticipation. Everyone is in this class because they want to be. It’s not required for any major or minor.
We met Susan Hopkins, a dedicated amateur mycologist who is immersed in the field. She has a wealth of knowledge. She’s skilled at identification and knows what mushrooms to use for dyeing fabric. Huber went over our textbooks, written by world renowned mycologist Gary Lincoff. He works at the New York Botanical Garden in New York City and is a pioneer in the field. Following this, Huber handed us a sheet with one hundred and fifty scientific names, and we went off into the woods. Our class headed across Route 30 to the Red Dot Trail and spread out, enthusiastically observing every mushroom in sight. Once a mushroom is found, the unspoken protocol is to run back to Huber or Hopkins for identification. It’s overwhelming – how am I ever going to know all these mushrooms? Am I expected to? I worry that I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
Towards the end of the foray, a fellow student and I find a mushroom that I’ve never seen before. It looks like white coral growing out of a rotting piece of wood. We break off a small piece off this log and head to our instructors. They’re both clearly excited about the mushroom we’ve found. The class gathers, and we lead them to where we found it. It’s Hericium americanum, known commonly as bear’s head tooth, a choice edible. We grab pieces to cook up for dinner.Huber recommended that we pan fry it with butter and a little garlic salt, which later, I did. Success!! It was at that moment that I realized I had been infected with an acute form of fungi-fever.
Bear’s Head Tooth Hericium americanum
As the weeks go by, we learn more, and the information becomes less overwhelming. We learn about choice edible mushrooms, poisonous and deadly mushrooms, dyeing mushrooms, medicinal mushrooms, psychedelic mushrooms, radical mycology, myco-remediation and more. I increasingly recognize the mushrooms we come across on our forays. Fungi fest is on its way and everyone works on their individual projects. On the day of the festival, there are medicinal teas, cutting boards, mushroom soup, myco-brews, mushroom art, posters, presentations and more. The class has also collected hundreds of mushrooms and identified them on a long display. In combination with these, there are two speakers Gary Lincoff and Sue Van Hook.
Artist’s Conk Ganoderma applanatum
Sue Van Hook works for Ecoventive, which is a company that focuses of sustainable uses of mycelium. Using agricultural waste they make a variety of ecofriendly products: Mycofoam, a natural Styrofoam replacement; Mycoboard, a particleboard, plywood, fiberboard replacement; and Mycoflex, a replacement for yoga mats, shoe soles and other cushioning applications. This is the sort of company that gives me hope for future sustainable agricultural practices. It is innovative and makes sense. Following her presentation is Gary Lincoff.
Lincoff, author of our textbooks, was celebrating his 73rd birthday on the day of the festival. His presentation focused on how mushrooms heal the world around us and heal us mentally, physically and spiritually. His passion for the topic is highly contagious, as is Huber’s. The speech was both captivating and inspiring. At the end of his talk, Lincoff recommended that the audience attend Horizons, a psychedelics conference in New York City, to which I bought tickets that very night.
The following weekend, I drove down to New York City at the crack of dawn and arrived at the Cooper Union Hall located in downtown Manhattan. There, an international group of researches presented their research of the medical applications of the psychedelic mushroom, psilocybin. The potential uses consist of application for PTSD patients, alcoholics and addicts, terminally ill cancer patients with anxiety and depression. The science presented was cutting edge, consisting of CAT scans, MRI scans and clinical therapy research. This isn’t the counter-cultural “hippy” movement of the 1960s. It is real science with real results.
Since these events, I have gone on collecting oyster mushrooms in forest soils lab, identifying mushrooms in New York City, observed a symbiotic relationship between one fungi and the seed pods of magnolia trees while attending the SAF conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and shared my passion with many diverse groups of people with no mycology background. I would love to go into these stories at great length, but I fear that I would need my own issue of the Apollos. I’ve been inspired and captivated by the study of fungi. There’s so much still to be learned and discovered. I highly recommend taking the mycology class or joining the mycology club if you have the opportunity to do so. At the very least talk to Huber about fungi and the field of mycology; you won’t regret it. It has the potential to be life changing.