Russula laurocerasi

Russula laurocerasi  common name "almond-scented Russula"

Russula laurocerasi  smells so sweet and looks so big and edible but tastes like a red hot pepper! I've seen these lots of times before but I did not think I would be able to key them so I never tried.   I have more confidence in my ability to key mushrooms now, so I took some home to key yesterday.   These came from private property.    I used the awesome matchmaker program at http://forestry-dev.org/biodiversity/matchmaker/index_e.html  to key these and got it right on the first try.  These came up as my number one match.   The downloadable program is the one to use.  I had trouble with the hard drive file so I downloaded the CD file and then it worked fine.  I really love this program!

These have ornamented spore so maybe I will take it into the lab look at the spores.  It also sound like this thing has HUGE  cystidia, all the more reason to do some microscopy with this specimen.

Ranger Davis demonstrates how to stomp a mushroom in the name of conservation

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these are the mushrooms that Ranger Davis felt the need to steal and stomp on


 "Jobsworth of the Week" Ranger Davis demonstrates how to stomp a mushroom in the name of conservation because it's what congress would have wanted..

 Not much out there today...  I found some Matsutake stumps and a rotten cauliflower that someone had cut to pieces.  The only good edible I found today was a hedgehog.  I took home a big white mushroom to identify, it smells nice.

To end the day I decided to go out to Staircase in Olympic National Park and have a picnic lunch.  I've been teaching my little one how wonderful it is that we have ONP and showed it to her on google earth so she could see the difference between ONP and all the logged over lands outside of it.

I had my mushroom ID book and lichen ID book with me so I grabbed a few tiny mushrooms from the campground (you know, the place where even dogs are allowed?) so I could key them out and then probably leave them in the park.   But along came a jobsworth of a ranger to ruin my day.  He stopped and wanted to know what I was doing.  I told him I was taking a mushroom class and he flipped his lid... he told me I need a permit to pick anything in the park.  Then he demanded my ID and spent far too long in his truck waiting for his radio to tell him that I have no criminal history.   From the amount of time he took he must have been running my name "all ways" in a desperate attempt to try to find anything he could. Gosh I bet that really disappointed him.  Sorry, I'm not a criminal, but I just happen to be one most outspoken conservationists in the county.     It was freaking cold out there and me and my daughter were shivering while we waited for him to do his B.S. with the radio.  Does anyone know what frequency they use up at staircase?

I argued with him a bit when he tried to lie to me about the rules.  You don't need a permit for picking mushrooms for personal use and yet he demanded to see my permit, presumably in an attempt to intimidate me.  Anyway I guess he is used to the way most Americans suck up to anyone in a uniform.   What it all boils down to is, if I had lied and said I was picking for the table he would have said I was within the law but since I told him I was taking a mushroom class and doing science (and he did not believe me) he threatened me with a ticket and forced me to dump out my 1/2 cup of  tiny mushrooms. Then he stomped the helpless little mushrooms into the ground in front of me and my daughter.  Nice job.. stomping mushrooms in the name of conservation, and in front of a child.  That's the way to protect our national heritage, I'm sure this is what congress had in mind!

His logic was that the mushrooms could be poison and you can't pick stuff unless you know exactly what it is because if it turns out to be poison you can't eat it and then you've committed a crime, because you can't pick stuff you're not gonna eat.  Can you say fungiphobia?  So following this logic, I guess that first chanterelle I picked out at Staircase in 2004 was illegally picked because I was not certain it was a chanterelle.   Yes I took it home and ID'ed it before I ate it.  GOD FORBID!!! What if I let one of the many chanterelles I have picked out there over the years rot in the fridge before I could eat it?  Would that be a crime?  A rotten chanterelle is poisonous.  What about the maggoty parts of mushrooms that I cut off and composted?  Isn't it a crime to remove maggots from ONP since they are animals and not the fruiting bodies of plants?  Where exactly do we draw the line Mr. Jobsworth? 

Most mushrooms are not poisonous,  but you can't really expect a jobsworth of a LEO to know that, even if he just happens to work in ONP which just happens to be the most fabulous mushroom garden on the entire planet.  He should go back to Alabama or what ever southern state he is from and learn something about mushrooms (and humanity) before he comes back out here.

Mr. Jobsworth stomped on the Boletus zelleri that  my daughter was wanting to eat.  Before that, my youngest wanted to be a park ranger but now she's having second thoughts.  She loves mushrooms and does not want a job that requires her to stomp on edible mushrooms.  I told her she could be a nice back country ranger ( like Ranger Bruce who also works at Staircase and is a nice person) but she would  have to clean out outhouses if she was a back country ranger.  So now she has decided she wants the Rangers job of "sitting at the place with the red light and taking people's money".

Shit like this makes me glad that Dosewallips never re-opened.   I can hike in there and look at all the empty ranger buildings and falling down "no parking" signs and have the place all to myself.  Staircase used to be closed during the winter; I wish it still was.  With the rangers in there all the time the Elk are gone.  Back when Staircase was closed in the winter I could count on seeing elk during every hike.  I wonder where the elk go now that the rangers have spoiled their winter habitat? 

I avoid Staircase like the plague in the summer, it's a horrible noisy zoo at that time.  I always wait until winter to go there, but now even during winter Staircase is not so much fun.

Anyway, now that I've got that off my chest I'll upload some pictures I took today, including a picture of a badly vandalized tree in Olympic National Forest where the only law enforcement is to cart off undocumented salal pickers.

 I spotted a yew tree in the campground at Staircase, I have only learned how to identify them this quarter, I also spotted many other things that I can now name, thanks to the class I am in.  I love classes like this that open my eyes and help me to see things.  I never got that out of my "Temperate Rainforests" class but "The Fungal Kingdom" has taught me a lot.   This class is so very much better than my experience with Temperate Rainforests.  Both classes are upper division science, but this class is run well and I'm learning all kinds of things and I'm very happy with it.  Maybe I won't be so frightened of upper division science after the nice experience I have had with this class.

Now this really should be a crime!

This bark was left in a hole in the ground.  Is the vandal planning on coming back to get it? See the
tree this recently removed from below...

Vandalized cedar tree.  Was this the work of a basket maker?  At least they did not girdle the tree so it will live, but  where the hell are the forest rangers when they are actually needed?  How could someone do all of this without being caught?
Oh wait, maybe this is legal because they did not actually remove the bark from the park and they probably already
knew that it was cedar bark, so they did not have to ID it to see if it was poison.

I now know that it is Usnea longissima that has prompted me to take so many photos of this tree over the years

Ranger Davis stomped these into the ground while invoking the name of congress

Ranger Davis did not stomp these, perhaps he should go back and give them a good stomping just to be safe

Ranger Davis did not stomp these because they are protected from him by Olympic National Forest.
I don't know what they are, but they are growing in a possible Peltigera membranacea lichen

I think this lichen at Staircase is Sphaerophorus globosus  but I'm probably wrong

Xylaria hypoxylon fungus at Staircase (common name candlesnuff fungus)

 fairy vomit lichen on an old growth stump, I hope the tree was stomped before it could be removed form the park

Unknown lichen, maybe an Usnea spp

I've never seen Lake Cushman so low and I've never seen these stumps with branches on them before.  I certainly hope that Ranger Davis was around to stomp the city of Tacoma for doing this the the North Fork Skokomish River Valley. Of course, one individual picking an fungus to ID is a terrible crime compared to what the greedy corporations and cities have done to this once beautiful valley. 

Stereocaulon spp lichen, all kinds of wonderful lichens grow in this spot next to the road

These fresh Matsutake stumps were the only Matsutake I found today, oh well, at least I got to smell it

Post Mid-term Freak out

Ah yes, it's time for a post mid-term freak out.  Lichen are part of the fungal kingdom but I never paid much attention to them until this quarter.  Now I know more than anyone needs to know about lichen.   



 
Back to fungi perfecti, my matsutake spot was barren of any mushrooms when I checked.  But I have a hunch that this is the week.  It frosted in town this morning and Matsutake likes to come up after the first frost.  Fall mushroom season was not the best, maybe winter mushroom season will be better.  I'm looking forward to yellow foot / winter chanterelles.
 
I've collected and curated 20 mushroom specimens and 18 lichen specimens for my class.  Now I just need to get two more lichens and then memorize the scientific names of 60 mushrooms and 20 lichens and write a final paper take two final exams and get over the flu. 

 Fall is always my best quarter, I'm usually pretty laid back and able to focus by the time summer is over, and we get a one week break right before finals week during fall quarter.  I wish every quarter came with a break right before finals!
 
I hope I will get over the flu and up to matsutake hunting by this weekend.

Basket dyed with Phaeolus schweinitzii "dyers polypore"

The bottom of the basket was dyed with dyers polypore. At first I used ammonia as a mordant, later I put in vinegar and the dye went from brownish to yellowish, oh and I threw some alum in at some point. As the basket dries it is getting more yellow. There are two rows of cat tails as well as cat tails on the basket handle. The cat tails were dyed too. The only undyed parts are the main reeds going up and the section of small twined reeds near the middle. It took me about 5 hours to make this basket, not counting the time it took to collect the materials. Most of the materials were purchased in a thrift shop. I happened on to a huge box of way underpriced basketry material at a thrift shop about 8 years ago. I don't normally buy basketry materiel, as it is so expensive. I normally use cat tails (after they wilt in the fall so as to not rob energy from the plant)  and English Ivy.

 English Ivy is a fun material to use; it is one of the few materials that does not require drying or soaking before use, it can be used fresh.  English Ivy is also an invasive weed that kills trees so I strongly encourage people to use it for basket making.

Here the body of the basket is almost done. Finishing off the rim is the most time consuming (and confusing) part for me to do.

Here it is all done but still wet. This is the first basket I have made in about 6 years.  I designed this basket to fit inside of my day pack.  My day pack is tall and narrow and I did not have a basket that fit inside of it.  I also made the handle short so it would fit inside my pack.

DNR does not honored disabled pass holders

 

 

 

The DNR needs to get its act together and start honoring all disabled people and not just disabled veterans.  Many disabled people could never have beome a veteran at any age, due to their disability.  It makes no sense to discriminate against disabled people who are not veterans.

 

I have PTSD (something that a lot of disabled veterans have) and I can use my 5 year state disabled pass to park for free at State Parks, but not on DNR or Fisheries land, nooooo they won't honor my pass.   I also have another disabled pass that allows me to park free at National Parks and National Forests.  The only place I can't park  for free with my disabled passes is in a stinking DNR clear-cut.  WTF ???

 

The same goes for my spouse who has a physical disability, with his disabled parking placard, he can use that at State Parks and he could get either a senior or a disabled pass for National Parks and Forests.  But he can't park in a DNR clear cut. 

 

This is a terrible system and this is why I no longer hike in the Capitol forest and we don't take our kids to Mima Mounds.  We won't buy a pass just to access DNR clear cuts when we can park for free everywhere else.  I've always hated the DNR and the way they "manage" their clear cuts.  This Discover Pass issue just gives me one more reason to hate the DNR.

The Department of fisheries (WDFW)  is just as bad, so I don't fish and I don't dig clams. 

 

Disabled veterans and other State Parks pass holders: The Washington State Legislature has created pass programs or certain visitors to Washington state parks. These existing passes reduce or waive camping fees for qualified limited-income senior citizens, disabled veterans, foster parents and people with disabilities. These pass holders are not required to display the Discover Pass while visiting state parks but are required to display the Discover Pass while on WDFW or DNR lands.

Pass holders visiting state parks need to display their free- or reduced-price pass on the dashboard or fill out a self-registration envelope and include the pass number on the envelope.

Disability placards or license plates: The Department of Licensing issues these disability permits and license plates, and holders of these are exempt from needing the Discover Pass on State Parks lands, pursuant to RCW 79A.05.065. Holders of these permits and plates do need to have the Discover Pass to access WDFW or DNR lands. For information about DOL-issued disability permits, visit www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/parking.html