As the drought dragged on in California this fall I longed for rainier pastures in Oregon. Fortunately my friend Roo who is also a PhD student in mycology lives in Eugene where mushrooms are abundant! After having so much fun and finding chanterelles in the Cascades the last time, I returned this time to look for Porcinis and Matsutakes on the coast in the dunes.
Mushroom hunting along the Oregon dunes
To me it’s a pretty irregular sight to associate mushroom hunting with sand, but don’t you just love this photo of Roo walking across the dunes with his mushroom basket? Turns out the dunes are a great place to go mushroom hunting! Plus you get awesome views of the Oregon coast. Not a bad place to hunt, right?
Oregon coast
We walked around for a while and came across some lovely giant Amanita muscaria. Unfortunately they were a bit soggy and difficult to take home but they sure are pretty.
Amanita muscaria or the fairytale mushroom in the woods
In addition to mushroom hunting on the coast we also did some city mushroom hunting in Eugene at a local park. It was a beautiful park with so much green peppered with yellow fall colors.
Fall colors in Oregon
While we did not find any edible mushrooms in the park we found some really cool little guys including these cute little Calocera cornea jelly fungi.
Calocera cornea covering a dead log
We also found some fun ascomycetes called Xylaria hypoxylon decaying wood. Can you guess why their common name is the candle snuff fungus or more ominously dead man’s fingers?
Xylaria hypoxylon AKA dead man’s fingers or the candlesnuff fungus
There was lots of dead wood in this park so we saw lots of interesting wood decay mushrooms including this really cool polypore Oligoporus caesius commonly known as the blue cheese fungus.
Can you guess why this is known as the blue cheese fungus?
Roo is really into wood decay mushrooms and ascomycetes in the Xylariales in particular so he spent lots of time poking around dead logs.
Roo poking dead logs for ascomycetes
I was particularly impressed by this jelly fungus/polypore called Phlebia tremellosa that was all over a dead log. I’ve never seen this mushroom before and it was so slimy and jelly like.
Phlebia tremellosa covering a dead log
It also had cool pores on the underside. It’s hard to describe the texture but it was quite jiggly and fun.
Pored underside of Phlebia tremellosa
This was quite an awesome city park and had some lovely giant Douglas fir trees in it. Aren’t they majestic?
Giant Douglas fir tree in Eugene park
So I know what you are thinking – nice pictures and nice mushrooms of mushroom hunting on the Oregon coast and in Eugene, but where are the edibles??? While we unfortunately did not quite find the bounty that I was hoping for, we did happen upon a few king boletes Boletus edulis in nestled under the bushes in the forests on the Oregon coast.
Boletus edulis the prized king porcini
Perhaps more exciting, I found this baby nestled under a manzanita bush. Get excited for the next couple posts where I post about what we cooked with the porcinis and matsutakes!
Tricholoma magnivelare the American Matsutake
