Zombie parasols

The way you recognize mushrooms is the same way you learn faces. You just have to get familiar with them, like you do when you meet people, or groups of people.

Here are a few notes from a fungi sermon at Hendrick’s park. It was supposed to be a walk too, but most of the time about 35 of us sat in the shade with a cool breeze for over an hour listening to a mushroom enthusiast lose all sense of time, giving us lots of fungi tidbits to digest. It was too long, but it was good.

The Cascade Mycological Society is the go-to for all things mushroom. First off, the correct terminology is fungi, like “fun-gee.” Mushrooms are the fruit or flower part of the fungi. It is the part we see above the ground.

Fungi specialize in decomposition. They are assigned to process everything that was once alive and is now dead.

I went in knowing nearly nothing about mushrooms. I learned:

• One slang term for mushrooms is “zombie parasols.”

• The largest living organism on the earth is a mushroom, and it lives in Oregon! It is the armillaria ostoyae.

• Spores of mushroom can survive outer space.

• The majority of mushrooms are not poisonous. Also, most of them aren’t that tasty, and some are.

• Some fungi can be used as anti-bacterial and anti-oxidant agents.

• Usually best to cook mushrooms before eating. Don’t eat if it smells bad or you don’t know what it is.

• You can taste poisonous ones if you spit it out. I wouldn’t do this.

• Fungi are considered to be their own kingdom (like the plant and animal kingdoms).

We passed around a few to get more familiar with their gills and pores, smells and colors. One huge chanterelle felt like a little curly-shaped person with soft yellow skin. It was larger than my hand.

The speaker said that mushroom gathering is very big in Russia. Families gather together, each with a basket to fill.

Near the end, a man told me his Jewish relatives had to flee Poland during World War II and eventually ended up in Siberia. They were very hungry, and he said, “the mushrooms saved their lives.”