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8 THE RURAL VOICE
Robert Mercer
Life and death on the forest floor
We have a large scale Federal fish
hatchery not far from where we live,
and we visited the area when the
annual fish spawning run was in
progress.
The life cycle of the salmon in the
wild was stark in
its reality of life
and death. There
were hundreds of
dead salmon
carried down
stream to the
mesh gates,
which caught
their remains
following their
spawning in the
specially
constructed
channels and
tributary streams.
We did not go
primarily to see the the salmon run,
we were on a guided walk in
November to learn about wild
mushrooms. These grow alongside
the river in the natural west coast
conifer rain forest.
Dead fish make excellent
fertilizer. Seagulls, eagles and — a
little higher up stream — even black
bears, all take the dead and dying
salmon out of the river. They eat and
leave the salmon remains along the
river bank where they decompose
year after year. This lush riverside
area is home to mushrooms and fungi
of all kinds — some tasty and some
deadly.
The life -cycle symbiosis of the
forest floor was also discussed in the
relationship of how mushrooms help
the fir trees in their growth.
Mushrooms are beneficial to the trees
because their root system helps make
mineral nutrition easier for trees to
obtain. They give the forest better
disease protection through this action
and make the trees more stress
resistant in time of drought.
They were about 20 of us on the
walk. We took a basket to collect the
specimens, books to help us identify
and even a magnifying glass to look
closer at the undersides (gills) for
final confirmation of the species.
The general area of the walk was
old forest, damp with lots of mosses,
ferns and huckleberry bushes. Clear
patches were covered in the remains
of the coniferous "leaves" which
made an ideal acid soil mix for the
mushrooms.
We found 36 varieties during the
day. Some were the same as you
might spot on the supermarket
shelves, others so different that we
were unable to identify them for
certain. However, we did not find any
of the hallucinogenic (consciousness
altering) varieties that grow in the
west coast forests.
Mushrooms come in many sizes,
shapes and colours. I wold have
missed many until they were pointed
out to me. One of the most amazing
was the coral mushroom. It looks just
like salt sea coral. •
We found morels, but not the prize
morchella escuenta which is said to
taste great. There were the
unfortunate looking fluted Elfin, the
better known Oyster mushroom and a
tiny white plastic -looking upright
leaf, that was a member of the Jelly
mushroom group. We also saw some
Charterelles which were past their
prime, so were not taken back for the
frying pan.
I now know that a mushroom has
gills, a veil, a cap. It can grow as
convex, bell-shaped, conic, humped,
flat, depressed or funnel shaped. I am
still a bit of a mycophobe (hostile to
mushrooms) as even after a day in the
field I still can't tell any of the good
from the bad.0
Robert Mercer w#s editor of the
Broadwater Market Letter and a farm
commentator in Ontario for 25 years.
CROP/QUEST
Nutrient Management Planning
& Consulting
Andy de Vries C.C.A.
519-229-6559
40,
CERTIFIED
CROP ADVISOR
Ron Pennings
519-348-0964
Fax: 519-229-8029
E -Mail: cropquest@quadro.net