A field day with mushrooms
One of the benefits of a very wet summer is a bounty of mushrooms. We went to the homeschoolers park day in Norwalk on Thursday and found 5 different types of mushrooms under the climbing tree. They were all interesting specimens too, some bright red ones, warty bright orange and yellow ones…enough to draw me in. I took photos of them.
I am used to plain old white field mushrooms that I used to collect occasionally on the farm with my cousins. These ones compelled me to go to the library and the whole exciting world of mushrooms opened up for me. I also thought some of my passion for these little fungi would rub off on my children and we’d have some fun this summer collecting mushrooms.
We’ve exhausted the children’s books on mushrooms which did familiarize us with the different types of mushrooms, the parts of a different mushrooms and the variations that we will need to know to work out which mushrooms we were looking at. We also found out that we need to collect specimens in order to identify them as we need to see the root structure, how the gills are attached and whether the mushrooms exude a liquid if cut.
Mushrooms make an exciting study. They have distinctive smells. 
Some are poisonous, some have medicinal properties. Mushroom hunting has a treasure hunt appeal to me. Imagine finding a fairy ring of mushrooms in the woods. I love the idea of collecting mushrooms to dissect and classify, maybe even drying out and laminating to make a collection of mushrooms found near the house. I am a complete novice so of course we wouldn’t taste any.
I must say that it is not easy for a child to identify a mushroom. Mushrooms change appearance depending on age. It took me a good half hour to narrow down one I found to 2 varieties based on a photo. I didn’t realize a photo wouldn’t give you enough information. You apparently have to carefully dig out the whole mushroom and place it in wax paper before consulting the field guide. Then you can use the dichotomous keys to narrow down the particular variety. It is worth the effort to show them how to do it though as they can use this technique to identify any member of the animal and plant kingdom.
Next Day…
This morning we visited the Old Black Spruce Bog in the Mohawk State forest, CT. We found plenty of different mushrooms under the Black Spruce trees, even Chanterelles! Chuckles and I had a field day discovering all sorts of fungi that I normally wouldn’t have noticed. This might be the start of something!
