Psst . . . Let’s talk smut today · numerous field guides and articles over the years. ... Alaska’s Wild Mushrooms ... wild mushrooms with Alaska mushroom enthusiast Chris Riggio

1 T M, July/August 2005

V 46:4 J ⁄ A 2005 ..

by Britt Bunyard

You may have first encountered theart of Nancy Mladenoff at the 2005NAMA Annual Foray. Nancy was aPhoto Contest winner for digitalentries of artwork.

Actually, her art isn’t photogra-phy, but painting, and her canvasis . . . well, the mushroom itself. Incase you’re uninitiated, NancyMladenoff paints on mushrooms. Ofcourse, she paints on canvas, too—beautifully, I must add. But herpainted mushrooms are definitelymost striking.

I recently caught up with theartist at her place of work. NancyMladenoff is an art professor at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison.Besides her obvious passion andtalent for art, she has a number ofother interests. A quick glance

around her studio reveals thatmushrooms are a near-obsession forher: photographs of painted mush-rooms, photographs of cultivatedmushrooms, painted canvases withabstract images of mushrooms (andinsects), as well as painted uphol-stery fabrics.

Mushrooms have long been asubject of art. Throughout historythey have been depicted with brightand unnatural colors or shapes, bynumerous cultures. Of course, mostoften this has been to reflect thepsychoactive properties utilized byvarious societies, including ourown. When I first saw one ofNancy’s painted mushrooms—it wasthe one with the sort of tie-dyedcap—I had a hard time figuring outwhat was going on in the image.

by Else C. Vellinga

Smut—1. A fungus diseaseaffecting various plants, esp.cereals, which are spoiled by thegrain being wholly or partlyconverted into a blackish pow-der; also, one or other of thefungi (species of Ustilagineæ)causing the disease. 2. A blackmark or stain; a smudge. 3. Bad,soft, earthy coal. 4. Soot or sootymatter. 5. Indecent or obscenelanguage. (Oxford English Dictio-nary, online version)

Let’s talk infectious diseases:let’s talk huitlacoche, and blistersof black spores, and sex—sure, sexis involved as well.

Ah yes, huitlachoche is a smut,by some considered a pest, bymany others a delicacy; it is also aperfect lab “animal,” and its com-plete genome has been sequenced.

Common Smut, Corn or BoilSmut, huitlacoche and cuitlacoche,

Nancy Mladenoff: Portrait of aMushroom Artist

Continued on page 10


In this issue:President’s Message .................... 2

Forays and Announcements ........ 3

Letter to the Editor: Poisoning ...... 4

Fungi in the News ......................... 5

Are You a Mycoholic? .................... 9

NAMA Foray Registration ..........13

Wildacres Registration Form......16

Mushrooming Anxiety ................17

Book Reviews .............................18

False Witches Cap ......................19

Mushroom of the Month ............20

Psst . . . Let’stalk smut today

2T M, July/August 2005

The Mycophile is published bimonthlyby the North American MycologicalAssociation, 6615 Tudor Court,Gladstone, OR 97027-1032.NAMA is a nonprofit corporation;contributions may be tax-deductible.Web site: www.namyco.orgIsaac Forester, NAMA PresidentP.O. Box 1107North Wilkesboro, NC 28659-1107<[email protected]>

Judy Roger, Executive Secretary6615 Tudor CourtGladstone, OR 97027-1032<[email protected]><[email protected]>

Britt Bunyard, Content EditorW184 N12633 Fond du Lac AvenueGermantown, WI 53022<[email protected]>Judith Caulfield, Production Editor927 Lansing DriveMt. Pleasant, SC 29464<[email protected]>

NAMA is a 501(c)(3) charitableorganization. Contributions to supportthe scientific and educational activi-ties of the Association are alwayswelcome and may be deductible asallowed by law. Gifts of any amountmay be made for special occasions,such as birthdays, anniversaries, andfor memorials.Special categories include

Friend of NAMA: $500–900Benefactor: $1000–4900Patron: $5000 and up

Send contributions toJudith McCandless, Treasurer330 Wildwood PlaceLouisville, KY40206-2523<[email protected]>

Moving?Please send your new address,two weeks before you move, to

Ann BornsteinNAMA Membership Secretary336 Lenox AvenueOakland, CA 94610-4675<[email protected]>

Otherwise—you may not be gettingyour newsletter for a while. Eachissue, several Mycophiles arereturned as undeliverable because ofno forwarding address on file. NAMAis charged seventy cents for eachreturned or forwarded newsletter.

P R E S I D E N T ’S M E S S A G E

Well, the morels came. From what I’ve been reading, there was anabundance of morels showing up in most areas of the U.S. Finally a springwith moisture—and well-timed moisture. Lots of other things are showingup now too here in the Southeast. I’m even finding a variety of boletesalready (mid May).

Again, if you haven’t registered for the Wisconsin foray in July, don’twait too long. I’m not sure how many spaces are still available, but they’llbe disappearing quickly. At this time airfares have dropped, so takeadvantage of it.

NAMA has received an exceptional gift. Marcia Guravich, the widow ofDan Guravich, has generously donated to NAMA Dan’s complete library offungi photography. Many of us have seen Dan’s beautiful photographs innumerous field guides and articles over the years. The collection consists of5,117 slides, organized, cataloged, and preserved in archival sleeves.NAMA’s officers and trustees will be determining how this incredible librarycan best be utilized for the benefits of the organization and its members. Ifyou know Marcia, please take the time to thank her for this extremelyvaluable gift.

What do you enjoy about wild mushrooms? That was a question askedof me lately by an Associated Press national writer. After what turned out tobe probably a two-page email in response, I had to come to the question,“What is not to enjoy about wild mushrooms?” We all have an interestingstory, I’m sure, of why we started hunting wild mushrooms or becameinterested in mycology as a profession. Since we’re still doing it, I assumethat we are enjoying it. I’m sure that she didn’t expect a two-page reply tothis question, but my list of things I enjoy about wild mushrooms wasextensive. Not the least of which is that there are many good mushrooms tobe found by walking into and out of trout streams.

I hope we all have an enjoyable mushroom season. See you inWisconsin. —Ike

Nancy Mladenoff’s photos of her paintings appear courtesy of the artist.


F O R A Y S & A N N O U N C E M E N T S

Continued on page 4

Eagle Hill Field SeminarsSteuben, MaineJuly 10–16, July 17–23,Aug. 28–Sept. 3

For details see the May/June ’05 issueof T M or their Web siteat www.eaglehill.us or email them at<[email protected]>.

Three Courses forMycophilesDelta Institute of NaturalHistory, Bowdoin, MaineJuly 16–18, Aug. 7, Sept. 23-25

For details see the May/June ’05issue of T M or toregister, contact Delta Institute ofNatural History, 219 Dead RiverRoad, Bowdoin, ME 04287; www.vfthomas.com/deltahome.htm; orphone (207) 266-5748.

NAMA Annual ForayUniversity of Wisconsin–La CrosseJuly 21–24

Details can be found in the Mar./Apr. and May/June ’05 issues of TM or from the NAMA Website; application form is on pages13–14 in this issue. Don’t forget: ourHost Mycologist, Tom Volk, hasrequested that those arriving earlyplease respect the area and notcollect within 20 miles of La Crosse.See you there!

Three Exotic Mexican ForaysCopper CanyonJuly 24–31

TlaxcalaAug. 28–Sept. 4

VeracruzOct. 16–23

For details see the Mar./Apr. ’05issue of T M or contactthe tour organizers, Erik and Gundi,at <[email protected]>, orvisit www.mexmush.com.

Mycological Society ofAmerica/Mycological Societyof Japan Joint MeetingUniversity of Hawaii–HiloJuly 30–Aug. 5

For details see the May/June ’05issue of T M or [email protected] or visit the MSAWeb site www.msafungi.org.

11th Annual NEMF SamuelRistich ForayAug. 11–14

For details see the May/June ’05M; for registration form andadditional information email theregistrars John or Cheryl Dawson at<nemf2005@ suscom.net> or callthem at (717) 846–1225.

25th Anniversary of theTelluride Mushroom FestivalTelluride, ColoradoAug. 18–21

For details see the May/June ’05issue of T M. Completeinformation about the Festivalprogram, registration, lodging, andtravel is available on the Festival’sWeb site: www.shroomfestival.com,or write Fungophile, Attn. MushroomFestival, P.O. Box 480503, Denver,CO 80248-0503, or call EmanuelSalzman, M.D., at (303) 296-9359 or(303) 296-1524.

28th Clark Rogerson ForayMoodus, ConnecticutAug. 25–28

The foray will be held at Cave HillResort, in Moodus, CT. Foray expertswill include Gary Lincoff, RozLowen, Sam Ristich, Sandy Sheine,and Leon Shernoff. For details seethe Mar./Apr. ’05 issue of TheMycophile or contact Don Shernoff at(914) 761-0332 or <[email protected]>.

Alaska’s Wild MushroomsAug. 26–28

This foray will be held at “Across-the-Bay Tent and Breakfast,” acrossKachemak Bay from Homer and onKasitsna Bay. Price of foray in-cludes rustic, cozy accommodations,delicious meals, a wood-firedsauna, and scenic surroundings.

Explore the hemlock and spruceforests of the Kenai Peninsula forwild mushrooms with Alaskamushroom enthusiast Chris Riggio.Price: $280.00 plus tax (includeswater transportation from Homer,accommodations, meals, and foray).

Add an extra day to the work-shop for a sea kayak trip, mountain-biking, or hiking (additional chargewill apply). Foray limit is 17.Contact owners Mary Jane andTony Lastufka at (907) 235-3633 or345-2571, e-mail<[email protected]> or visit their Website at www.tentandbreakfastalaska.com for more information.

Foray Newfoundland andLabrador 2005Gros Morne National Park,NewfoundlandSept. 2–5

Labrador StraitsSept. 6–9

For details see the May/June ’05issue of T M or checkthe Humber Natural History SocietyWeb site: www.swgc.mun.ca/hnhs.

Annual Gary Lincoff Mid-Atlantic Mushroom ForaySept. 10

For details see the May/June ’05issue of T M or contactthe WPMC or Dick Dougall at (412)486-7504, or by email <[email protected]>; or Glenn Carr at(412) 369-0495 or by email<[email protected]>.


Letter to the Editor: Poisoning

The item on page 4 in the March/April 2005 issue ofT M, about the Amanita phalloides fatalityin the San Francisco Bay Area, caught my eye. I’mcurious about where the figure of “900 cases of mush-room poisoning reported in California last year” camefrom. I can’t be sure of the source, but I suspect it isfrom the American Association of Poison ControlCenters’ TESS 2003 or 2004 report. If so, I’d like topoint out that those figures refer to “mushroomexposures,” not just symptomatic cases (“poisonings”).

In the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center’sarea (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Las Vegas, Nevada,and Hawaii), and, I’m reasonably sure, in the rest ofthe country, this includes essentially all contactsconcerning mushrooms, including such calls as, “Mychild may have touched a mushroom. Is it poison-ous?” This type of call probably accounts for a verylarge percentage of those 900 cases. Typically, most ofthose cases would have ended with no symptoms everoccurring, and the identity of the mushroom beinglisted as “unknown.”

The count of mushroom exposures for our RMPDCterritory in the past has been about 500 a year (Ihaven’t checked that figure recently). Each year, fromour multi-state area, I receive, on average, between 75and 100 calls for mushroom identification, and ofthose, perhaps 35 to 70 will be symptomatic.

Nationally, there has sometimes been concern thatthe number of identified mushrooms in thosethousands of “exposures” is so low. However, we knowthat the vast majority of those exposures involvecommon non-toxic mushrooms, and it would be a full-time job and then some to identify all. Add to that thedifficulty of having people get specimens to one of therelatively small number of identifiers, if indeedspecimens are available, and it boggles the mind!

Many poison centers, working with their mycologyconsultants, have established guidelines on when tocall for identification. Since treatment is based onsymptoms, and we don’t want to treat if it is notnecessary, many of those cases are handled on anobservation and follow-up basis. This system hasworked very well in the vast majority of mushroomexposures.

—Marilyn ShawMycology Consultant to Rocky Mountain Poison

and Drug CenterMember, NAMA Toxicology Committee

Chair, CO Mycological Society Toxicology Committee

PS: To Bill Freedman and Mike Wood: I trust you wouldagree with my suspicion that this “900 poisonings inCalifornia” figure does not represent actual poisonings,but rather “exposures.” —Marilyn

Priest Lake (ID) ForaySept. 23–25

The Spokane Mushroom Club’s annual Priest LakeForay will take place at Hill’s Resort in beautiful PriestLake, Idaho. The Spokane Mushroom Club recentlycelebrated its 40th birthday and would like to invite allwho are interested to help celebrate. For details contactDoris Distad at <[email protected]> or (509) 328-7973or visit our web site at www.spokanemushroomclub.org.

Wildacres Regional NAMA ForayWildacres, North CarolinaSept. 29–Oct. 2

Dr. Orson Miller, Jr., will be Principal Mycologist.Participants at this foray will be limited to 40 persons,double occupancy. There are no private rooms. The costof the foray is $175 and covers three nights lodging andeight meals beginning with an evening meal onThursday Sept. 29 and ending with breakfast on Sun-day, Oct. 2. For a registration form see page 16 in thisissue of T M. For additional informationcontact Allein Stanley at <[email protected]>.

3rd International Medicinal MushroomConferencePort Townsend, WashingtonOct. 12–17

For details see the May/June ’05 issue of TM or contact Steve at (800) 780-9126 , ext. 10,or email at <[email protected]>.

8th International Mycological CongressCairns, AustraliaAug. 21–26, 2006

It’s not too early to start planning—and saving money—for IMC8! Details are forthcoming; in the mean-time,check the Web site for periodic updates: www.sapmea.asn.au/imc8.

Forays and Announcements, continued from page 3


F U N G I I N T H E N E W S

Continued on page 6

“WHY PICKING WILD MUSH-ROOMS MAY BE BAD BEHAVIOR,”screams the title of an essay by NikMoney (author of “Mr. Bloomfield’sOrchard” and “Carpet Monsters”) inthe journal Mycological Research(109: 131–35). Well, maybe it didn’tscream, but it sure got my attention.

So, fellow mycophages, doescollecting wild mushrooms harm thevery population of mushrooms thatwe covet? This is the age-old ques-tion. Dr. Money may ruffle a fewfeathers, but he makes some veryinteresting points. Consider yourfeelings on the once widely acceptedpractice of egg collecting by oolo-gists. Or wild orchid collecting (orany other wildflower collecting, forthat matter). Or whaling.

I welcome all your thoughts, butplease read Nik’s article first, if youcan. Now, here’s the latest from theprinted mycological world.—Britt

◆

From a Mycologist Who Breaksthe Mold . . .

In a very timely article, thelatest issue of Wisconsin Trailsmagazine features a brief article onTom Volk (this year’s host for theNAMA Foray). Tom extols thevirtues of a number of fungi andtheir benefits to mankind. He alsogives tips on where to look formorels!

. . . to Ants That Trap with Mold . . .Here’s one you’ll find hard to

believe. A recent study published inthe research journal Nature by AllainDejean and colleagues of theUniversité de Toulouse in Francedescribes how some tropical arborealants are attracted to and take upresidence in pouches formed in thestems of leaves of a tree known asHirtella physophora. Furthermore,the tree keeps the ants happy byproviding them with nectar snacksthat are grown separately from theflowers.

But ants cannot live on sugaralone. They make up for a lack ofnitrogen in their diet by acting ingroups to capture protein-rich flyingand jumping prey—prey that wouldlikely be herbivorous toward the tree.

The ants, Allomerus decemarti-culatus, seem specifically associatedwith the Amazonian “ant-plant” H.physophora, and take a novel ap-proach to catching prey. Using fibersplucked from the stem of the hostplant and bound together by pur-posely grown fungal mycelia (from asooty mold), they build a spongyplatform for trapping much largerinsects, then lie in wait.

The authors note that preyranges from mosquitoes to grasshop-pers. And, yes, they actually placedinsects on the platforms to see howthe system works. When prey movesonto the platform, the ants springinto action. The ants beneath theplatform reach through the holesand immobilize the prey beforedividing the spoils among nest-mates. Although it’s too bad for thelarger prey insect, the ants do quitewell. And as the host benefits fromthe ants’ predation (and probablyfrom fecal and carcass waste), itsuits the ant-plant just fine. Theauthors report this to be the firstaccount of a collective creation of atrap as a predatory strategy in ants.

. . . to Very Old MoldA flurry of articles has been

published recently, involving ancientfungi. Nicholas J. Butterfield, of theUniversity of Cambridge, has foundfossils of what many believe to bethe oldest fossilized fungi everdiscovered. He believes that, al-though not belonging to any livinggroup of fungi, the fossils—1.4billion years old—are of a veryprimitive genus called Tappania,which was a benthic aquatic group.The jury’s still out, but manyscientists agree with the findingsand think these represent the oldestknown group of fungi.

Dr. Butterfield’s description ofthe fossils, which were found onVictoria Island in Canada, is in thelatest issue of Paleobiology (31[1]:165–82). There are lots of photos ofthese bizarre creatures; but theydon’t look like any modern mush-rooms you or I would recognize. Noteven close.

A large team of scientists led byMagnus C. Lydolph and JonasJacobsen describe the diversity offungi from 300,000 to 400,000 yearsago in Siberia. Did they bring someprimitive organisms back to life bysome new technology? And aredinosaurs next? Nope—they actuallyisolated DNA locked in ancientpermafrost and sequenced thehundreds of samples they found. Inaddition to a number of plant andinvertebrate sequences detected,numerous fungi turned up. Theirfindings, published in a recent issueof the journal Applied and Environ-mental Microbiology (71[2]: 1012–17),indicate that there was a severeplant shift in plant composition innortheastern Siberia during this timeperiod, judging from the differentsorts of tree-associated macrofungithey detected. Other fungi found intheir study include a large diversityof cold-adapted yeasts, plant para-sites, and lichen symbionts. In otherwords, the fungal community thenlooked much as it does today!

In the February 2005 SpecialEdition issue of Scientific American(15:1) is an article entitled “TheIceman Reconsidered.” You mayrecall that in 1991 the body of a5,000-plus-year-old Neolithic manwas discovered in a melting glacier.In the decade since his discovery agreat deal has been determinedabout how Ötzi (named for the ÖtzalAlps where he was found) lived anddied.

Naturally, I wouldn’t be men-tioning him in these pages if fungiweren’t involved! A number of fungi


were found on and inside the body ofthis primitive fellow. Of course,some were most likely molds actingto decay the corpse. I seem to recallMeredith Blackwell’s lab at LSUdetermining (using DNA sequenc-ing) that much of this was Botrytiscinerea, a common mold found inmany of our refrigerators. Mostnoteworthy, though, were pieces ofbracket fungi: the tinder fungus,Fomes fomentarius (also known byother names), no doubt carried tolight fires; and Piptoporus betulinus,a species long used as a styptic andas an antimicrobial to help healwounds. It has been noted that thismushroom was also used as avermifuge; and Ötzi did, indeed,have a bad case of whipworms, asdetermined during the autopsy. Forsome terrific photos, I’d recommendgoing to the library and pulling outthe February 2003 issue of theSmithsonian.

Shrinking Coprinus?Walter Gams reports on page 18

of the latest issue of Inoculum (56[3])that the genus Coprinus is beingreduced by numerous species. Thisis based on a number of studies thathave been published over the pastfew years. Numerous species werefound to be polyphyletic and severalbelonged to two different families. Asummary of this nomenclatural shiftis forthcoming in the May issue ofthe journal Taxon.

Proposal for a Single ScientificName for All Species of Fungi

Also in the latest Inoculum(56[3]: 3–6), Amy Rossman and GarySamuels propose that a singlespecies name be used for all fungi.This is a vexing issue to neophytesand mycology students alike: thepractice of naming fungi based onsexual characters—and what to doabout those fungi for which nosexual state is known. I’m talkingabout the teleomorph and anamorphstates, respectively. Those fungi (andthere are lots of them) that have no

known sexual state have historicallybeen placed in their own group:Fungi Imperfecti or Deuteromycetes.Most confusing of all is when youcome to the realization that an“imperfect” fungus with one name issynonymous with another, previ-ously named, teleomorphic species.Of course, the system of namingasexual fungi has always been nec-essary. However, nowadays therereally is little need to keep anamorph-specific names, as the teleomorphicspecies (or genus, anyway) can bedetermined through DNA sequenceanalysis.

Scientists Confirm Gut Feelingabout Yeasts

Yeasts are some of the best-known and most ubiquitous fungi.About 1,000 species are known.Resulting from a study by Sung-OuiSuh and Meredith Blackwell of LSU,that number has just gone up by200. The researchers are interestedin the fungal flora of the guts ofinsects and other arthropods, andhow these fungi benefit their hostorganisms. It seems that cellulose-fermenting yeasts may play a crucialrole in the insects (including beetles)that consume plant material. Thediscovery of so many new speciescame while surveying a number ofbeetles from the southeastern USand Panama. It was published in thejournal Mycological Research (109:261–65).

The authors are confident offinding hundreds more new species.In fact, the currently known speciesof yeasts may end up being onlyabout 1% of all the species outthere! Incidentally, the “beetle belly”yeasts (I’m not making this up,that’s what Dr. Blackwell callsthem!) comprise species from generafamiliar to many of us, including theascomycete Candida spp., but alsoinclude some basidiomycete repre-sentatives, as well, includingTrichosporon spp.

For more on insect yeasts andother insect-fungus interactions, seethe Book Reviews on page 18.

The Wrap-up from Across thePond . . .

Pleurotus eryngii is a choiceedible mushroom that is gaining inpopularity as a commercially pro-duced species. This “species” actu-ally exists in nature as a species-complex, defined by different hostsand environmental factors (e.g.altitude). In a recent issue of theBritish journal Mycological Research(109: 71–80) De Gioia et al. set out toexplore the genetics of this speciesto locate varieties with better com-mercial traits, including yield. Alongthe way they found a mushroomspecies with a high degree ofgenetic diversity, and in the articlethey discuss possible reasons.

You probably knew that Cordy-ceps species are parasites of insectsand other arthropods. But did youknow that some species parasitizeother species of fungi? You also maynot have known that the taxonomyof the genus is a mess. Stensrud etal. (Mycol. Res. 109: 41–56) areaiming to change that with theirstudy.

Another article (this one is areview article) from the same issueof Mycological Research that may beof interest to you is titled, “Basidi-omycete mycelia in forest soils:dimensions, dynamics and roles innutrient distribution” (109: 7–20) byJohn W. G. Cairney of Australia.

A team of researchers, includingNAMA’s own Jim Trappe, havenamed two new genera of deserttruffle from Africa (Ferdman et al.Mycol. Res. 109: 237–45).

Volume 19, Part 1 of Mycologisthas an interesting discussion of theuse of host specific “mycoherbicides”(presumably, concoctions of thespores of fungal plant pathogens) toeradicate source plants for illicitdrugs, including opium poppy andcoca.

From the Pages of Fungal Geneticsand Biology . . .

To better understand the geneticmechanisms underpinning theprocess of mushroom development,a team of researchers at TsukubaScience City in Japan, led by

Fungi in the News,continued from page 5


Yasumasa Miyazaki, developed atechnique to isolate developmentalregulation genes in the Shiitakemushroom, or Lentinula edodes. Intheir paper (42[6]: 493–505), theresearchers describe how theyisolated more than 100 genes fromtwo stages of the fungus, the“vegetatively growing” hyphae andthe developing fruitbodies. Bycomparing the sequences of thosegenes to sequences previously foundin two other basidiomycete fungi(Phanerochaete sp. and Coprinopsissp.), they were able to locate anumber of genes unique to Shiitake,and of those they selected the onesonly functioning during mushroomformation. Of course it doesn’t meanthat any of these genes are respon-sible for mushroom development,but at the very least these scientistsare on the right track!

Many of us are familiar with thehuman pathogenic yeast fungusCandida albicans. This fungus is aubiquitous member of the humanflora; it’s thought that we all havethis species, plus hundreds ofbacterial species, living in relativeharmony on and in our bodies.Many species of microbes areknown to suppress the growth ofothers, thus preventing disease. Butif something upsets that balance(including high doses of antibioticswhich can kill off much of ourbeneficial bacterial flora), thisfungus can cause a severe invasivedisease known as candidiasis, or a“yeast infection.” Well, it seems thathumanity has suffered with thispathogen for a long time. A very longtime. Timothy Lott and colleagues(42[5]: 444–51) have determinedthat, based on DNA sequenceinformation, this species has beenaround for somewhere betweenthree and 16 million years. Thissuggests that this organism has beenaround since the beginnings of earlyhominid evolution.

Of course there are fungalpathogens of animals that have beenaround even longer than Candidaalbicans. The dinosaurs no doubtwere afflicted with fungal diseases.But could pathogenic fungi have had

a role in the extinction of poikilo-thermic (“cold-blooded”) dinosaursand led to the flourishing of endo-therms (“warm-blooded”), such asbirds and mammals? That is thequestion posed by Arturo Casadevallof the Albert Einstein College ofMedicine in New York (42[2]: 98–106). Dr. Casadevall notes thatevidence of deforestation and aproliferation of fungal spores can befound in the cretaceous-tertiaryboundary soil layers (the samelayers where the dinosaur fossilsstop) and that this suggests a link.Of terrestrial animals, the birds andmammals (all endotherms) have fewfungal pathogens, while ectothermslike insects are plagued by numer-ous species of lethal of fungi (forexample, Cordyceps sp. and Ento-mophthora sp.).

“Why did the Fleming strain failin penicillin industry?” is the title ofa paper (42[5]: 464–70) by MartaRodríguesz-Sáiz and others atAntibióticos, a pharmaceuticalcompany in León, Spain. Penicillin,discovered 77 years ago by Alexan-der Fleming, is a naturally producedcompound excreted by the moldPenicillium notatum. While Flemingeventually shared a Nobel prize forhis discovery, the above fungusproved to be of little use in makingthis miracle antibiotic. It was thescientists Chain and Florey wholater found in 1943 that anotherspecies, P. chrysogenum, makes thesame compound—and 1,000 timesthe amount of the original species.Turns out that a single geneticmutation is responsible for thesuperlative production. Penicillinproduction begins with the produc-tion of a precursor acid that can beconverted to either penicillin oranother compound, 2-hydroxy-PA.The researchers found that the latterspecies has a gene defect thatprevents it from producing much ofthe 2-hydroxy-PA. The result is thatit gets stuck in its penicillin-makingmode. Lucky for Fleming—and all ofhumanity—as the number of deathsand suffering this drug has stavedoff is nearly enumerable.

Speaking of Mushroom Drugs,What’s New with Psilocybin, Dude?

Back in the early sixties Harvardpsychologist Timothy Leary snucklysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) (outof campus laboratories and into themainstream. Soon, tie-dyed hellbroke loose in popular culture, andpsychedelic drugs were quicklybanned. By the decade’s end, theyhad all but vanished from thepsychological research scene.

A report in the journal Psychol-ogy Today [March/April 2005] statesthat now, for the first time in some30 years, human studies of suchcontraband substances are on theupswing. Many researchers say itshould have happened sooner. “Thebanning of psychedelics has been anabsolute disaster for consciousnessand medical research,” says RickDoblin, head of the MultidisciplinaryAssociation for Psychedelic Studies,a nonprofit pharmaceutical companyfunding much of this new work.

Many researchers say hallucino-gens were kept out of research labsbecause of fear generated by drugslike methamphetamines and heroinand the “war on drugs.” In fact,there’s little evidence that psyche-delics are either addictive or moredangerous than, say, alcohol ormarijuana, researchers report.Doblin argues that in the interven-ing decades, advances in everythingfrom disease treatment to conscious-ness studies to basic psychologicalresearch have suffered. “These newstudies are just the first steps on along road to recovery,” he says.

The turnaround started in theearly 1990s, when the Food andDrug Administration ran out ofreasons, political and otherwise, toquash contraband drug research,Doblin says. Scientists hope halluci-nogens can make inroads withtough-to-treat conditions, saysCharles Grob, chief of adolescentand teen psychiatry at the Universityof California at Los Angeles. Grob ispicking up where another re-searcher, Eric Kast, left off in the1960s. Kast had promising resultsusing LSDto relieve anxiety in

Continued on page 8



terminally ill cancer patients. Ofcourse, LSD, or similar naturallyoccurring chemicals are derivedfrom the Ascomycete fungusClaviceps purpurea which is alsoknown as “ergot.” To follow up onthose results, Grob is currentlyinvestigating psilocybin—the magicin “magic mushrooms”—as a treat-ment for anxiety in late-stage cancerpatients.

Researchers hope this is only thebeginning of a hallucinogenic datamine. Grob also points out, “Peopleforget, but psychedelics were thecutting edge of science in this coun-try for 50 years.” In fact, in the 1940sand ’50s, so much money flowed inthis direction that quite a few topresearchers got their start in thisfield. Many feel modern psychiatryowes its origins to the study ofhallucinogens. After all, it was thediscovery of the neurotransmitterserotonin—thanks to LSD—thatjump-started the brain chemistryrevolution.

Flashback in the lab: Six psyche-delic drug studies are underway, allaimed at some of medicine’s moreintractable problems. The MedicalUniversity of South Carolina has astudy, directed by Michael Mithoe-fer, on “DMA (ecstasy) in conjunc-tion with cognitive behavior therapyfor the treatment of post-traumaticstress disorder triggered by sexualabuse.” A University of Arizonastudy, under the head of FranciscoMoreno, is looking into “Obsessive-compulsive disorder treatment withpsilocybin.” As mentioned above, astudy at UCLA, led by Charles Grob,is examining “Late-stage cancer-related anxiety treated with psilocy-bin and therapy.” Harvard Univer-sity, the research home of TimothyLeary, has two ongoing studies. Thefirst, led by John Halpern, is lookinginto “Late-stage cancer-relatedanxiety treated with MDMA andtherapy.” A second study, directed byAndrew Sewell, is examining“Treatment of cluster headacheswith LSD and psilocybin.”

Black Mold . . . or Black Gold? . . .or Much Ado about Nothing?

What ever happened to thefungus Stachybotrys chartarum? Youmay recall seeing this fungal namein the news frequently over the pastseveral years. It seems that wher-ever people looked around theirhomes, they were finding this blackmold growing just about anywherethat was damp and dark. Back in themid 1990s in Cleveland, Ohio, thisfungus was believed linked to nineinfants’ deaths from mysteriousbrain hemorrhages. The infantsbecame sick not long after theirhomes were damaged by flooding.In all cases, a black mold identifiedas S. chartarum was found.

So begins the infamous historyof this otherwise unremarkablemold. Since that time, numerousdisorders have been blamed on thismold. It almost has become commonknowledge that this fungus (or somesort of fungal compound, such as amycotoxin) can cause health prob-lems including cancers, respiratoryproblems, immune system disorders,and memory loss. Or can it?

Well, it is certainly well estab-lished that mycotoxins can cause allsorts of ill effects, including cancerand death. But Stachybotrys? Anumber of researchers are begin-ning to stand up and say firmly,“No.” Two California doctors, MohanNair and Ashok Jain, wrote anarticle in the journal New Scientist(185[2490]: 17–21) entitled, “Worsteffects of toxic mould ‘are all in themind.’” The gist of the article is thatthese doctors (one, a psychiatrist,and the other, a toxicologist) havefound that the majority of peoplereport ailments that are impossibleto confirm, and that between 70 and80 percent of lawsuits involvingindoor molds have no medical basis.And lately there has been a greatdeal of mounting evidence castingdoubt on S. chartarum as a cause ofany health effects.

But that doesn’t seem to bother anumber of scientists who aremaking their careers pay in a bigway by serving as “expert witnesses”in lawsuits involving indoor molds.

In the May 11, 2005, issue of Forbesmagazine Daniel Fisher wrote anarticle titled “Dr. Mold” that de-scribes how a number of scientistshave played significant roles insome major insurance claims cases;three billion dollars in insuranceclaims were paid out in 2002 alone.The author exposes the credentialsof many of these characters asexaggerated, at best, and outrightfraudulent at worst. And just howrich are these “experts” getting? Oneformer physician charges $9,800 upfront, plus $975 per hour.

As stated above, it’s well knownthat fungi can cause health prob-lems, including allergies andasthma. There’s no question thatingested mycotoxins (typically incontaminated foods) can havedevastating effects on humans,livestock, and pets. But what aboutinhaled mycotoxins? This has beenone of the claims some have maderegarding the S. chartarum story.This seems pretty unlikely as well,according to a feature review articlepublished recently by Bruce J.Kelman and colleagues in theInternational Journal of Toxicology(23:3–10). In an extensive study theauthors calculated the maximumpossible dose of mycotoxins comingfrom inhaled spores from a numbermycotoxigenic fungi including S.chartarum, Aspergillus flavus (thesource of aflatoxin), and Aspergillusfumigatus. They concluded that themaximum possible dose an indi-vidual could inhale in a 24-hourperiod would be nowhere near greatenough to pose any sort of a healthrisk. Additionally, the authors reviewa number of other recent studiesshowing no link between indoormolds and nonallergic healtheffects.

For more information on prob-lems with indoor molds, I recom-mend “Black Mold: Your Health andYour Home” by Richard F. Progovitz.This book, published in 2003 (ISBN0-974394-39-4), is small and concise,and written in easy-to-read English.There are good descriptions of

Continued on page 9


❑ Do you pray for rain?❑ Does your heart beat faster when you see a stump?❑ Do you salivate upon hearing “morel”?❑ Do you abandon guests, family, or business, just togo on a foray?❑ Do you get evasive and try to change the subjectwhen someone mentions your favorite spot for Boletusedulis or Morchella esculenta?❑ Is your temporal framework modified?❑ Do you no longer think of the seasons as spring andfall but as “morel” and “honey”?❑ Do you find yourself used to eating or even expect-ing to eat such items as dirt, non-amyloid spores, anddipteran larvae?❑ Do you get irritated at little things that keep youfrom foraying? Things like work, home life, policespeed traps, and No Trespassing signs?❑ When you see a beginner with a choice edible, doyou say, “Gee, that’s an interesting one. Do you mind ifI take it home to study?”❑ Is your idea or eroticism a Phallus ravenelii(Stinkhorn)?

Here’s an interpretation of your scores:0–4 You may be normal. Pray!5–8 You may be a mycoholic but you need to have a

spore print taken to be sure.9–14 You are a confirmed mycoholic. Seek help.15+ You are probably beyond help.

Just what are the dangers of mycoholism? Besides theobvious deleterious effects on the social, home andbusiness life, this disease has very real consequencesas well. Mycologists, in addition to their tendency tohave a sore head from walking into things because theyalways look down instead of head-up, frequently sufferfrom a number of physical infirmities that are a directresult of their habit of stooping, bending, kneeling,tugging, lugging, and picking. These include Entolomaelbow, Dentinum disk, Naematoloma neck, Trich knee,and with some a Gymnopilus glaze in the eyes.

There are some mycoholics whose all-too-frequentBolete binges have reduced them to physicalwrecks. These people keep coming to forays, oftendragging pillows on which they can ease their achingframes after a frantic fungal frolic.

So, what can be done for a mycoholic? For a start,you should rid your home of all fungi and mycologicalparaphernalia. Begin by sending all your dried morelsand Boletes to me. After that, you’re on you own.

—Scott StolesonReprinted with permission from The Kansas Mycolog

Most of our members are “social shroomers.” Theycome to several forays each year to pick edibles andincrease their knowledge, but mainly just to get outinto the woods on summer and fall days and socialize.

But there are some among us to whom mushroomsare no longer just a casual interest or an enjoyablewarm-weather hobby, but rather a compulsion, anobsession. Such people will be out picking on swelter-ing August days and in freezing December weather.During peak season, they will be shrooming not just onscheduled forays, but two, three, or more times aweek. These people are mycoholics!

Mycoholism is a serious problem that is spreadingits mycelia throughout our society. It isn’t a problemconfined to the poor and underprivileged or to recentimmigrants from Eastern Europe. Mycoholics comefrom all walks of life: lawyers, production managers,doctors, antique dealers, garden-clubbers, physiologists,chemists, students, farmers, housewives—anyone canbecome a mycoholic.

There are a few clues that differentiate a mycoholicfrom a casual collector. For example, in their cars theyhave a six-month supply of waxed paper begs in theback seat and dried up Tricholomas in the ash tray. Theywear little or no jewelry except a hand lens around theneck. While these traits do not automatically condemnsomeone as a mycoholic, they are among the warningsigns to watch for.

Are you a mycoholic? Not sure? Then you’d betterreview some of the following warning signs. (Score 1point for each “yes” answer.)

Are You a Mycoholic? Take This Test to Find Out

symptoms attributed to Stachybotrys along with othermycotoxigenic fungi. There are even tales of famouspeople afflicted with moldy homes, including EdMcMahon, of “Late Night” fame, and Erin Brockovitch,environmental activist turned mold activist. It seemsthat the million dollars she won from Pacific Gas &Electric for groundwater contamination was spent on amansion—which turned out to be moldy. She spent therest of her fortune and more on remediation!

Update on the “almond mushroom,” Agaricus blazeiYou may recall the “new” cultivated mushroom that

burst onto the scene a few years ago. Known as the“almond mushroom,” “almond scented mushroom,” and“almond Agaricus,” this mushroom has been heavilytouted by Paul Stamets (among others) as the replace-ment for most varieties of commercial mushrooms.Besides its reported delectability (with a scent ofalmonds), this mushroom has generated a great deal ofinterest in its purported medicinal properties. Recently


Fungi in the News, continued from page 8


and Ustilago maydis in Latin—different names for the same thing,a fungus that grows on corn. In-fected corn ears develop huge galls,part fungus, part plant, that eventu-ally burst open and release the darkdusty spores. Less conspicuous isthe presence of fungus on otherparts of the plant, but it certainly isnot restricted to the cobs.

Corn is not the only smut-infested plant valued by gourmets;tender, young shoots of wild ricewith the smut Yenia (Ustilago)esculenta are a much prized delicacy

in China. However, there is littlegood (from a human perspective)about most of the 1,450-somespecies of smut that parasitizearound 4,100 species of plants. Onlya few tree and shrub species are

prone to smut infections, and thesame is true for ferns. Further-more, the huge family of orchids iscompletely free of smut. However,where smut is at home is amongsedges and grasses (corn, barley,wheat, and a whole array of non-cereals). We see it next to side-walks in Berkeley, California,looking like dark powdery flowerstalks in the Bermuda grass (seethe photo on the left).

There is the usual variation inhost specificity: the corn smutoccurs only on corn (Zea mays),while others can be found on awide array of plants. Ustilago

hordei, for instance, infects not onlybarley as the name indicates, but aslew of other grasses. Water plants,like arrowleaf and water lily, havetheir own special fungal communi-ties. Here it is the environment thatshapes the species composition,rather than the identity of the hostplants. There is even one species ofsmut or smut-like thing, Malasseziafurfur, that is a human pathogen,causing a skin rash.

Smuts can cause havoc inagricultural crops, especially oncereals like wheat, with losses inyield and in money. Karnal bunt isan example: in 2002, when thisAsian disease turned up in some

counties in Texas, within a day over25 countries had banned the importof grains from the infected areas,with an estimated loss of $27million. This disease has suchpotential to cause economic damagethat it is mentioned as a possiblebioterror agent.

But what exactly is a smut; howdoes it grow; what are its closestrelatives? Let us zoom in on the cornsmut and see how it lives.

We’ll start with the spores thatare formed in the gall. These arecalled teliospores, and their appear-ance in huge amounts on the plantis in many cases the first and only

signal that the plant is diseased. Thedark, thick spore wall indicates thatthese spores, which are carried bythe wind, are adapted for dispersaland survival under adverse circum-

Ustilago cynodontis on Bermuda grass(Cynodon dactylon)

Smut! Continued from page 1



I knew something about the mushroom wasn’t quiteright, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I think thepainted mushrooms are so interesting because theylook quite real; after seeing so many stylized pictures ofmushrooms, I think my mind’s eye sometimes expectsthem to have fluorescent colors.

Painted Mushrooms, continued from page 1

Illinois Three

Canada One

Canada Three

Wisconsin Four

Before I get a ton of letters in protest over theartist’s use of potentially harmful pigments and dyes innature, I must point out that Nancy is ecologically veryreverential. She told me that, immediately after paint-ing and photographing her subjects, she wipes themclean, leaving no trace. (That’s fortunate; with their



Two Bolete limericks by Charmoon Richardson

I once heard that boletes can giggleIf given just the right jiggleIt’s a tickle that comes whenAll the maggots in the stemCause the whole thing to wiggle

I once met a bolete that talkedIt had a mouth at the top of the stalkThe funny thing wasIt couldn’t say much becauseThe whole thing was starting to rot

Limericks reprinted with permission from SOMA News(Sonoma County Mycological Association) and the author.For more mushroomy limericks and other fun things, writeto Charmoon Richardson, The Wild about Mushrooms Co.,P.O. Box # 1088, Forestville, CA 95436, or check out hisWeb site at www.wildaboutmushrooms.net.

Other magazines urge you to subscribe, butwe invite you to join friends on what we call

“printed forays”!

For 20 years, Mushroom the Journal has provided informa-tion of value to those who like to hunt, name, cook, studyand photograph wild mushrooms. We’ve answered —

• How do professionals find “pillowcasefuls” of morels?

• In the future, will you have to pay to pick on public landand still have to contend with bag limits?

• If you discover a new species, can you name it anythingyou want?

• Should you worry about violence from commercialpickers?

• Can you do more with choice edibles than toss them in asauté pan with butter?

• Can you grow your own truffles? Train your own trufflehound?

• Can you subscribe to the world’s best mushroom maga-zine and have your satisfaction guaranteed? (You certainlycan guess that answer—and yes, you can also train thedog.)

We’re proud of the job we do of reviewing books of interestto the amateur mycologist. Before you buy, you’ll knowwhether you should. Think we’re kidding about “joining”rather than “subscribing”? Our Letters column lets you speakout, or contact others to seek that special book or sell thathistoric mushroom basket.

So join—come aboard and check us out!www.mushroomthejournal.com

Yes! Send me ❏❏❏❏❏ the next year (4 issues) for $19 or❏❏❏❏❏ three years (12 issues) for $49 (Save $8)

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“discovered” and named Agaricus blazei (as well as A.brasiliensis), this edible species was found in the deepdark recesses of the Brazilian rainforest. Or was it?

According to Dr. Richard Kerrigan of Sylvan Re-search (the world’s largest commercial producer ofAgaricus spawn; spawn is the “seed” mushroom grow-ers use to inoculate compost for a mushroom crop), itain’t so. In a paper published in the latest issue of thejournal Mycologia (97: 12–24) A. blazei is shown to benothing more than A. subrufescens, a commerciallyimportant species from days gone by.

Agaricus subrufescens was first described in 1893 byC. H. Peck. The species was widely cultivated andeaten in the Atlantic states from the late 1800s until theearly 1900s. It was then replaced by the “button mush-room,” A. bisporus, which became the commerciallypreferred member of the genus until today. According toDr. Kerrigan, Agaricus subrufescens still can be foundgrowing in the wilds of northeastern North America, aswell as in the West.

Dr. Kerrigan, a world authority on the genusAgaricus, previously has raised doubts over the identityof A. blazei / A. brasiliensis. In this latest paper, herelied on DNA sequence analysis, along with conven-tional morphological features, to state with absolutecertainty the true identity of the almond mushroom.

Also from the pages of Mycologia—Stephen Rehner and Ellen Buckley of the USDA

have made efforts (97: 84–98) to resolve the taxonomyof the entomopathogenic (a big word that means “apathogen of insects”) fungus Beauveria. It seems thatthis group is most closely related to the highly prized(for its medicinal properties) genus Cordyceps. In fact,




The North American Mycological AssociationNAMA ’05

University of Wisconsin at La Crosse

Thursday, July 21st, through Sunday, July 24th, 2005

Ann Bornstein, Registration336 Lenox Ave., Oakland, CA 94610-4675

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Complete both sides of this form and send to Ann Bornstein with your check, payable to NAMA ’05.

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LIABILITY RELEASE AND PROMISE NOT TO SUE

I understand that there is some risk in participating in a mushroom foray and conference: all those risks oneassumes by being away from home, risks associated with moving about in fields and woods, risks involved ineating wild mushrooms, risks of losing personal property by theft or misplacement, and all other expected andunexpected risks.

In registering for or attending this foray, I agree to assume total responsibility during this event for my own safetyand well-being, and that of any minor children under my care, and for the protection of my and their personalproperty. I release the North American Mycological Association (NAMA), its trustees, officers, employees,contractors, and all other persons assisting in the planning and presentation of this event from liability for anysickness, injury, or loss I or any minor children under my care may suffer during this event or as a result ofattending and participating. I further promise not to file a lawsuit or make a claim against any of the persons listedabove, even if they negligently cause me or my minor children injury or loss. Finally, I agree to hold NAMAharmless from any liability it may incur as a result of any damages to UW–LaCrosse property that I may cause.

This release and promise are part of the consideration I give in order to attend this event. I understand that itaffects my legal rights. I intend it to apply not only to me but to anyone who may have the right to make a claimon my behalf.

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VOLUNTEER OPTIONS

If you can help in any way, please let us know. The volunteer time of our members is what continues to makeNAMA forays such a success and great time for everyone. The coordinator will contact you with details prior tothe foray.

❏ Registration❏ Assemble information packets

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Smut! Continued from page 10

stances. There are other smuts, theanther smuts, in which the sporesare transported from plant to plantby flower-visiting insects, but cornsmut spores overwinter in the soil.When the teliospore starts to germi-nate, it acts like a basidium, thestructure in which nuclei (the cellregulators) fuse. In this case, thebinucleate teliospores producebasidiospores with a single nucleus.Mushrooms, from boletes to chant-erelles, from conks to crusts, needspecial fruiting structures to producespores. Smuts do it with a singlecell. These basidiospores have asaprotrophic lifestyle and can growoutside the plants; they are singlecells which bud and behave likeyeasts. This phase has been studiedextensively in the lab, as you cangrown these cells on agar plates.

The spores are also the primaryinfection agents. When two basid-iospores mate, they fuse to form anew mycelium, and the smutembarks on its parasitic phase.Infection takes place in differentparts of the plant. It can happen viathe silk of the cob, interfering withpollination, which sets off a racebetween pollen grain and smutspore. As the mycelium growswithin and between the plant cells,it causes these cells to divide likecrazy and at the same time growbigger: a gall is born. The teliosporesare then formed as modified parts ofhyphae. The plant epidermis breaksopen, the spores appear, and thecircle is complete.

Of course, other smuts do partsof this cycle in different ways; butfor most species, the life cycle is notknown in such detail as it is for theeconomically important corn smut.Some species infect seeds, somegrow throughout the plant andpersist in it for the whole lifetime ofthe plant. As one example, takeMicrobotryum violaceum, which is avery interesting anther smut,specializing on carnation-like plantsin the family Caryophyllaceae.Species in this family are oftendioecious, which means that there

are plants with exclusively femaleflowers and plants with maleflowers. The anther smut occursonly on the male flowers andsubverts the flowers to produce darkpurple spores instead of pollen. Thisstrategy should mean only a 50%infection rate (only half of the plantsare male), but the smut has found away to do better. It attacks plantswith female flowers by first per-forming a sex-change operation!

It took mankind quite a while tounderstand the real nature of thesmuts. The classical Greek Theo-phrastus wrote, “Bunt or stinkingsmut of wheat is caused by theaction of the burning rays of the sunfalling on the heads that had beenpenetrated by abundant rain.” It wasonly in the mid 1700s that thistheory was proven wrong by aFrenchman, Matthieu Tillet, whodid a bunch of nice experiments.First, he planted a wheat plant in apot which he kept really wet. Theplant stayed infection free, contraryto the prevailing opinion thatabundant rain caused the infection.Second, he planted grains with smutspores in some plots and non-infected seeds in others and re-corded carefully the number ofdiseased plants in each plot. Theinfected seeds produced infectedplants, and most plants of the blanksstayed disease-free. This method didnot work for corn smut, as theinfection does not happen via theseeds, so there he concluded that itwas a characteristic of the plant andthe circumstances under which itwas grown. Even when it wasknown that the smuts were not partof the plants, it still took consider-able time to realize that they werefungi. Researchers did not see anyhyphae among the spore masses.And as recently as 1967, new Silenespecies were described based on thedark colour of the “pollen grains.”We know now that this was merelydue to an anther smut.

Fungi with so few apparentcharacters, mainly spores andhidden hyphae, are difficult toclassify. The big breakthrough camewith electron microscopy and with

the use of molecular characters foridentifying major groups. It thenwas realized that anther smuts aremore closely related to rusts, an-other big group of basidiomyceteplant pathogens, and that othergroups of plant infesting fungi arenested within the “proper” smuts:Exobasidiums, for instance, the fungiwhich cause galls and misshapenleaves in Rhododendrons, Vacciniumsand Manzanitas. In other words,different groups of fungi have comeup with the same idea of formingpowdery spores in great masses onplants. When we look at familyrelationships with molecular tech-niques, we find that rusts and somesmuts haven’t changed much sincethe common ancestor of all fungiwith basidia. The other smuts had asomewhat more recent ancestor butalso haven’t changed much. Thebranch that underwent extensiveevolutionary change is the one thatled to the familiar gilled mushroomsand boletes.

The question “what exactly is asmut?” is harder than ever to an-swer. Right now, the best definitionis “basidiomycete plant parasiteswhich produce teliospores.” Not avery satisfactory definition, but onethat works!

Dr. Vellinga works on the systematicsand phylogenetics of Lepiota species inTom Bruns’s Lab in the Plant andMicrobial Biology Department of theUniversity of California at Berkeley.Except where indicated, all photos inthis article are by Gerald Pataky of theUniversity of Illinois, Champaign.

the two groups are pretty muchsynonymous, with Cordyceps produc-ing some anamorphic Beauveriaisolates. That is, cultures can bemade in the lab from wild Cordycepstissues, and these can produceasexual mycelium of Beauveria.




NAMA WILDACRES REGIONAL FORAYSeptember 29–Oct. 2, 2005Wildacres , North Carolina

To register, complete this form and mail with a check for $175, payable to NAMA, to Allein Stanley, 136Homeplace Drive, Mount Holly NC. For additional information call (704) 827-1939 or email<[email protected]>. Persons sharing a room may use the same form.

l. Name ______________________________________ 1. Name ____________________________________

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Participants at this foray will be limited to 40 persons, double occupancy. There are no private rooms. The costof the foray covers 3 nights lodging and 8 meals beginning with an evening meal on Thursday, Sept. 3, andending with breakfast on Sunday, October 3.

Liability waiver: By signing below, I release the North American Mycological Association, its officers and membersfrom any and all liability and loss arising from any accident, injury or illness which may result from activities of heNAMA regional foray at Wildacres.

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Is Beauveria the “cure” for malaria?And speaking of Beauveria, two research papers in

the latest issue of the journal Science (308[5728]: 1638–41; and 308[5728]: 1641–42) lend hope that the spreadof malaria can be contained in the future—using fungi!

It seems that two entomopathogenic fungi, Beau-veria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae, were found tobe highly successful in killing mosquitoes (the insectvector of the disease malaria), and harmless to humansand other mammals. These two fungal groups are wellknown the world over as bug killers. In fact, probablyevery group of insects has a corresponding strain ofpathogen from one or both genera.

Although many researchers are playing down thediscovery, saying that commercialization of the two

fungi is a long shot, at best, the findings made a bigsplash in the news, with The New York Times (amongother newspapers) and the British journal Naturereporting it.

Speaking of Books . . .You may recall that in the March/April 2005 issue ofT M I suggested five books, all fiction, andall with stories centered around mushrooms (or fungi,at any rate). There aren’t too many such works offiction (that I can think of, anyway); so how ironic itwas when, just as that issue was going to press,another such work fell right in my lap. Published in



Mushrooming AnxietyRestaurateurs, foragers worry about more

regulation; one East Village chef innocently

picks wild toxic “destroying angel.”

by Kate Pickert

Wild-mushroom fans are in an excitable frame of mind:morel season—the most bountiful time of the year—hasjust started. But there’s also a dark cloud hanging overNew York’s fungi community, ever since Californiahealth officials shut down several mushroom vendorsat farmers’ markets this year, pledging to regulate whathas long been a self-policed industry of foragers,restaurateurs, and gourmands. The officials’ fear? Thatlack of oversight is paving the way for poisonings.

At least fifteen North American mushrooms aretoxic enough to kill. New York has about 60 poisoningsa year, according to the Health Department (themajority are small children “grazing” and people tryingto get high).

At the moment, New York State agriculture lawssay mushrooms picked in the wild can be sold if they’reinspected by “an approved mushroom identificationexpert” but don’t specify what constitutes expertise.

It isn’t always easy to tell if mushrooms are safe,even if you’re ’shroom-savvy. Colin Alevras, chef at theTasting Room in the East Village, picked a bagful lastyear that he found in the yard of his father’s houseupstate. He took it to Michael Hoffmann, a wild-mushroom vendor at the Union Square farmers’market. “Michael took one look and said, ‘Throw thewhole bag out and wash your hands. Keep them awayfrom my mushrooms.’ I had picked a destroying angel,”says Alevras, referring to one of the most beautiful buttoxic local varieties. “It made me really nervous.”

City health codes ban chefs from serving mush-rooms picked in the wild. Most “wild mushrooms” onmenus are in fact cultivated specialty varieties likeshiitakes. As Laura Phelps, president of the AmericanMushroom Institute, notes, “Any dish under $20 is notgoing to have wild mushrooms.”

Some chefs use the real thing, though, and predictincreased regulation is just a matter of time. Blue Hillchef Dan Barber says, “I would hope this stays on theback burner.” “I fear they’re going to regulate every-thing,” adds Alevras. “It would be a drag and pushpeople out of the business. We’d have to have secretunderground mushroom clubs.”

[Originally published in New York Magazine May 9,2005; Vol. 38[16]: 16–17. Reprinted with permission. Bythe way, you may remember Ike mentioning the perceivedneed for “approved mushroom identification experts” in thelast issue of T M. —Britt]

new hues, I’m sure I would be duped into believing I’djust stumbled upon a new species!) Nancy says shetried a number of different kinds of paints over theyears before she hit upon a pearlescent (and environ-mentally benign) liquid acrylic paint that shows up wellon the often dimly lit forest floor—and in the digitalprints.

The artist certainly has a passion for mushrooms.She is a member of NAMA and the Wisconsin Myco-logical Society. Besides studying and painting mush-rooms, she is an avid collector of things with mush-room motifs. She showed me the mushroom handker-chiefs that she’s started collecting. We talked at lengthabout her extensive collection of mushroom salt andpepper shakers, which has been on display at theWendy Cooper Gallery in Madison. Nancy says theInternet makes finding and purchasing such items veryeasy. A little too easy, she adds: one’s hobbies can veryquickly impinge upon another’s space around the home(she is married to another faculty member of UW–Madison, and has two cats).

Besides painting mushrooms (and mastering the artof making digital images of her work), Mladenoff alsocombines brightly colored sculpting clay and mush-rooms (and plants) found in nature. She also managesto find time to tend to her students; she teaches paint-ing to both undergraduate and graduate students andserves as advisor to 10 graduate students in the ArtDepartment.

Not long ago she had an exhibit at the WendyCooper Gallery that was titled “Hush, you mushrooms.”In addition to recent shows in the Chicago and Madisonareas, Mladenoff has shown extensively all over theU.S., as well as London and Germany. She is lookingforward to a sabbatical in Norway in the near future,where she’ll no doubt find plenty of subject material.Following her stay in Norway, she has another sabbati-cal and show scheduled in Tabor, in the CzechRepublic.

Painted Mushrooms, continued from page 11

2004, Jack in the Pulpit, by Cynthia Riggs, is the fourthin a series of mysteries featuring the character VictoriaTrumbull, a wise and sprightly nonagenarian. The storyis set in a peaceful nook of Martha’s Vineyard wherethe sudden death of four people in one month, allparishioners at the same church, has upset the island’stranquility. I don’t want to spoil the story for you, butmushrooms are definitely involved. Although a littlepredictable at the end, the book is a good read and, as itis only 200 pages, could be knocked out during yourflight to and from the Annual Foray.

If anyone else has any mycophilic works of fictionto recommend, please bring them to my attention.Happy reading!—Britt



B O O K R E V I E W S

Mycorrhizas: Anatomy and CellBiology, by R. Larry Peterson,Hugues B. Massicotte, and Lewis H.Melville. Ottawa, Ont.: NationalResearch Council of Canada, 2004.173 pages. ISBN 0-660-19087-7.

It seems as if just about everywherein the plant world that researcherslook, symbiotic associations arefound involving a partner fungus. Infact, the current thinking is that thevast majority of plants—if not all ofthem—are involved with mycorrhizalfungi.

If you’re pretty much a novice(like me) when it comes to anunderstanding of the mycorrhizalfungi, and if you’re looking for abook that’s not too long, is easy toread, is well organized, and hasincredible color and black-and-whitephotos, then look no further. I can’tsay enough about how informativeand downright beautiful this book is.

The text is divided into chaptersdiscussing the different groups ofmycorrhizal fungi, with each chapterdivided into descriptive sections. Thefirst section is always the Introduc-tion which is further divided intothree subsections: Definition, PlantSpecies Involved, and Fungal SpeciesInvolved. Other sections within eachchapter can vary but usually featuredescriptions of structures andphysiology. “Functions” of struc-tures—Hartig net, different types ofspores, “hairy roots,” arbuscules,how orchid mycorrhizae play a rolein seed germination, etc.—aredescribed with great clarity andplenty of illustrations and fantasticelectron micrographs. Chapters aretitled “Ectomycorrhizas,” “Ectendo-mycorrhizas,” “Arbuscular mycorrhi-zas,” “Ericoid mycorrhizas,” “Arbutoidmycorrhizas,” “Monotropoid mycor-rhizas,” “Orchid mycorrhizas,” and“Dark septate fungal endophytes.”There is a complete list of referencesat the end, which I find very helpful

when learning about a new topic.Furthermore, the Appendices pro-vides step-by-step details on how tostain plant root tissues to observemycorrhizae under the microscope.

Although this book would makea superior text for college-levelstudents, it’s written with the clarityto be suitable for all mycophiles; butkeep a copy of Ainsworth and Bisby’sDictionary of Fungi handy, just incase, as there are quite a fewtechnical descriptions.

Insect-Fungal Associations: Ecologyand Evolution, ed. by Fernando E.Vega and Meredith Blackwell. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2005.ISBN 0-19-516652-3.

The majority of named species onthe planet are insects (750,000 ofabout 1.5 million total, in all phyla).Fungi are pretty well known fromjust about every biome on the planetand have a knack for intertwiningthemselves (no pun intended) intothe lives of countless other species.Despite these two facts, the interac-tions between insects and fungi havenot been very well researched. Iknow from experience as the areahas been of interest to me for many

years now, the interactions betweenmushrooms and mushroom-eatingflies—those nasty maggots thatalways seem to spoil your basket ofboletes or chanterelles!

This brand-new book summa-rizes what is known in the field andprovides good overviews fromseveral experts. Although there is nosection on mushroom-arthropodcoevolution, all the well-studiedareas are covered. Probably of mostinterest to the mycophiles (and likelybest understood) are the sections onfungus-farming termites and ants.The chapter covering the latter isentitled “A Comparison of Agriculturein Humans and in Fungus-growingAnts.” Other chapters elucidate theecology of mycophagous bark beetlesand their fungal partners (morelseason just ended; think Dutch elmdisease here), how plants benefitfrom chemical defenses produced bytheir fungal endophytes, and severalchapters on fungi that are parasitesof insects and other arthropods. Asalluded to elsewhere in this issue,you can’t hear the name MeredithBlackwell without thinking about theyeast symbionts of arthropods andthis topic gets ample discussion intwo chapters.

For anyone wishing to find outmore on how insects and fungi getalong (and sometimes don’t getalong) in the environment, this bookis a great place to start. Althoughaimed at the research community,

this book iscertainlyreadable byanyone witha littlebackgroundknowledgeof modernfungalresearch.Besides, thestories aretruly fasci-nating!

—Britt


False Witches Cap

by Steve Nelson

Caulorhiza (Collybia) hygrophoroides(Peck) Halling is uncommon enoughthat it is hard to find a lot of informa-tion on it, distinctive enough to bedefinitely recognizable, and wellworth knowing about. It has a deepbrick-red smooth (initially) conic capthat is weakly hygrophanous, ratherbroad off-white gills, and a reddish-tinged, longitudinally striate, twisted,solid, and tough stem that is stronglyrooting. The spores are elliptical andamyloid, turning dark blue inMeltzer’s solution. Peck noted thatyoung specimens look rather likeHygrophorus (Hygrocybe) conicus andnamed and illustrated it accordingly inhis Annual Report 32 (for 1878) frommaterial found at Knowersville,Albany County, New York, which wasrepeated exactly in Annual Report 37(for 1883, which was N.Y. StateMuseum Bulletin, Vol. 1 No. 2). Pecknoted that it is exceptionally rare, andin his 49th annual report (for 1895),he notes that it had not been reportedagain in the 17 years since the initialfind.

Kauffman (1918) provides a gooddescription but only a very poorphotograph of two aged specimensviewed from below the cap so onlythe striate stem may be seen well.He only had found it near AnnArbor, Michigan (where he lived),and mentions that it is rare and localbut “rather common in a singlelocality.” He extends the period thatit occurs from May to July and saysthat Peck saw and verified theidentification of his specimens.Graham (1944) copies Kauffman’sdescription and adds Illinois to thelist of states in which it had beenfound (without locality). He alsoshows a line drawing, obviouslycopied from Kauffman’s photographwith the addition of a suitablyconical button.

Smith, Smith, and Weber (1979)give a more modern description of it,promote it to “infrequent” (whichsuggests to me that Smith knew at

least one place to find it regularly;he lived in Ann Arbor, too), but theycuriously omit the fact that thespores are amyloid, which put meoff its trail for a while; also, they donot show a drawing. Lincoff (1981)mentions that it grows in the springbut does not describe it. Thus thisspecies has essentially disappearedfrom popular mushroom books afterthe advent of color photographymade it an unattractive choice tocarry many species (especially thosethat do not occur on the East andWest coasts).

The cap margin being straight onthe stem when young (instead ofcurled under the rest of the cap) andits amyloid spores exclude it frommodern Collybia (and Halling’s segre-gates, Gymnopus and Rhodocollybia).Its closest relative is C. umbonata Peck(described in 1904), a similar but morecommon species that grows underCoastal Redwoods in the PacificNorthwest and was transferred togenus Caulorhiza by Lennox in 1979.Singer synonomized Caulorhiza withhis genus Hydropus, although Collybiahygrophoroides Peck was neithertransferred to it nor otherwise men-tioned in the 1986 edition of hisworld-wide compendium of mush-rooms. Halling transferred hygro-phoroides to Caulohriza in 1983 in a

list of excluded species of Collybia(although Lincoff already used thename in 1981). Halling deservesspecial praise for putting his Collybiamonograph on the web(www.nybg.org/bsci/res/col), makingthis technical and difficult-to-findmaterial available free, presumablyseriously cutting into sales of hardcopies.

Our experience agrees with the“rare and local but rather common ina single locality” comment ofKauffman. We discovered C. hygro-phoroides in the Hemlock-HardwoodsScientific Area near the top of MountPisgah, the highest hill in WildcatMountain State Park in VernonCounty, Wisconsin, on May 15, 1999.It was an especially dry year, and wewere trying to find morels (of course).Including then, we have found itduring May in five of the seven years,between May 15th and 26th, some-times but not always in what webelieve to be exactly the same place(on the dogleg immediately uphillfrom the rock covered with walking-fern, so it is easily identifiable). Allbut one time it has been foundappearing to arise from bare earth,although it doubtless occurs on buriedwood, explaining its appearance indry years. We have never found morethan six caps at once, but it is surpris-ingly reliable in this limited area,much more so than the elusivemorels, which have been found thereabout half the time. The only othertime we have found C. hygrophoroideswas during another very dry period onMay 30, 1992, at Haskell-NoyesWoods. This is another Scientific Areathat also is claimed to have neverbeen logged, which probably explainsthe rarity of this species. Havingfound it several times, I feel justifiedin producing a “common name” forthis most uncommon species.

Steve Nelsen is a Professor ofBiochemisty at the University ofWisconsin–Madison and a member ofthe Wisconsin Mycological Society.

Caulorhiza hygrophoroidesPhotographed by Steve Nelson at May 21,

2005, Wildcat Mountain State Park


North American Mycological Association336 Lenox AvenueOakland, CA 94610-4675

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This is a painting byNancy Mladenoff entitled“Wisconsin 4.” See inside

this issue for more paintingsand the story (page 1).

Documents

Psst . . . Let’s talk smut today · numerous field guides and articles over the years. ... Alaska’s Wild Mushrooms ... wild mushrooms with Alaska mushroom enthusiast Chris Riggio