People stalking moose aren’t the only hunters in the woods these days.
September also is a busy month for harvesters of mushrooms. Naturalist Judy Hall Jacobson recently published three books that might help fungi hunters, “Common Mushrooms of Alaska,” “Poisonous Mushrooms of Alaska,” and “Edible Mushrooms of Alaska.”
Jacobson started into a comprehensive book in 2005, before deciding smaller ones were handier. “If people just wanted edibles, they could just buy edibles,” Hall said in a recent interview. The book of common mushrooms includes elements of the other two books.
Mushrooms are the fruiting body of a fungi, a kingdom of living things not quite plant or animal. Most are edible but not so many taste good, Jacobson said, citing king boletes, “hedgehogs,” chanterelles and shaggy manes as local favorite edibles. The “edible” book includes a section on mushroom recipes, as well as color photos of “the deadly six fungi.”
“You don’t need to know all the mushrooms, but you need to know the ones you eat,” she said.
Part of Jacobson’s message is just appreciating mushrooms that she describes as “beautiful” and “mysterious.” Mushrooms grow though absorption of water into cells and can appear in hours. “That’s why rain is important.”
They’re also vital to the ecosystem. Mushrooms help plants and trees absorb nutrients, and trees supply the same to mushrooms. Fungi also are important to the decomposition of trees, making forests possible.
Jacobson’s books include detailed descriptions, hundreds of color photos as well as blown-up diagrams identifying parts of a mushroom. Close study can be essential because mushrooms don’t always look like photos of them in books, she said.
“To really know a mushroom, you have to know all the parts. It is technical,” she said. For example, she said, it’s possible to mistake a small puffball mushroom, an edible mushroom, for a poisonous amanita. Harvesters can slice such a mushroom, from top to bottom, to tell the difference. Bisection of an amanita reveals a stalk, gills and cap while puffballs are homogenous “pure, white meat” within, she said.
Smell, taste, color changes, habitat, even microscopes can be used to identify mushrooms. A “spore print” can be taken of gilled mushrooms, using a small piece of glass or mirror, Jacobson said.
There are more than 55,000 mushroom-producing fungi on Earth and “thousands” in Southeast Alaska, Jacobson said. Mushrooms start sprouting here in July, often when sun follows heavy rains. “This year, July was iffy but now I’m finding a flush of species everywhere. Yearly, there’s variations in when species show up and how common they are,” she said.
There are many mushroom books worldwide but not many on Alaska species, she said. Her books are based on her research of what can be found here, she said. “It helps to have a book (on mushrooms) from your area. You can’t have too many mushroom books.”
Jacobson has worked as a tour guide in Haines 14 years. She holds a degree in environmental conservation from Cornell University. She also recently published “A Naturalist’s Guide to Haines, Alaska” and “Guide to the Plants along the Manuka Nature Trail on the Big Island of Hawaii.” She also is the author of “Native Plants of Southeast Alaska,” published in 1995.