Besides being the best company a person could ever have on and off the forest trails, I love foraging with Balfour because we both love fungi. Doesn’t have to be edible or beautiful (which I realize is in the eyes of…) but we just love to explore and find mushrooms we haven’t seen before. That’s what foraging is for us: Getting out together with our dogs, roaming the forests, traipsing off trail to check on something we spotted, and finding a mushroom we didn’t know of before. Pure joy. And if we come home with a bagful for dinner – bonus.

About the Phaeolus schweinitzii

A fungal plant pathogen that causes butt rot on conifers such as Douglas-fir, spruce, fir, hemlock, pine, and larch.[1] P. schweinitzii is a polypore, although unlike bracket fungi the fruiting body may appear terrestrial[citation needed] when growing from the roots or base of the host tree.[2]

The fruiting bodies, appearing in late summer or fall, commonly incorporate blades of grass, twigs, or fallen pine needles as they grow. They are tannish with darker brown centres, with orange to pale margins on young specimens.  As the fruiting bodies age, the pore surface turns from yellow to greenish yellow, the top becomes darker, and the yellow-brown fleshbecomes harder and more wood-like. The pores bruise brown. The spores are white, elliptical, smooth, and inamyloid.

More information: Phaeolus schweinitzii: Wikipedia

McDowell remembers the adventure began when Balfour said “Do you wanna see something really different?” And McDowell responded “Do I???” So Balfour led the way up a trail they had travelled many times, which of course McDowell didn’t recognize because she’s hopeless at finding her way through a forest, and wow these beautiful candysticks were right there. Which just goes to show that after 20 years, foragers can still find something they’ve never seen before!

The cool thing about A. virgata is that they are nongreen plants, because they lack chlorophyll, and are able to obtain nutrition from neighbouring green plants through a fungal intermediate. Cool or what!!! And they have excellent taste, preferring the awesome matsutake mycelium as a food source.

About the Allotropa virgata

Allotropa virgata is in the family Ericaceae and is the only species of the genus Allotropa. It is a perennial plant that gets its common names from the distinct white and red or maroon stripes along its erect peduncle. A. virgata are nongreen as they lack chlorophyll, instead obtaining nutrition from neighboring green plants through a fungal intermediate.

Allotropa virgata feeds primarily on matsutake mushroom (Tricholoma matsutake) mycelium, and also possibly that of the similar Tricholoma magnivelare. Allotropa virgata was listed as a ‘sensitive’ species in 1998. It is a clonal species that spreads through its extensive lateral root system, to lengths up to 4 feet and 2 feet deep. Because it spreads underground through buds on the lateral roots, it is able to survive ground fires if the host tree of its fungal hosts are not killed as well.

Allotropa virgata is pollinated by bumblebees, sweat bees, and some Lepidoptera species.

More information: Allotropa: Wikipedia