It’s almost a year now since Erin Patterson,a mum from Leongatha in the foothills of the Strzelecki Ranges in Victoria, via a mushroom-smeared Beef Wellington. Those three guests died,and the fourth only just survived. Patterson has pleaded not guilty and awaits her day in the Supreme Court.
Hunting and gathering:beef steak fungi in their element.Jo Stubbings
The mushroom tragedy made news around the world and made everyone sit up and listen. There’s a whole lot of mushrooms out there that are as harmless as Julie Andrews,but there’s a whole lot that aren’t.
According to mycologist Tom May,“If you’re asking,‘Can I eat it?’ from a low base of knowledge,just stick to the ones at the supermarket.”
The mushroom drama happened at a time when fungi forays were hot. Was it a post-pandemic desire to escape to the hills,a bumper mushroom season or the many expert-led fungi field trips for amateurs? Whatever. Weekenders were “a-foraging” and poison hotline calls spiked.
But here’s the thing. You don’t have toeat fungi to adore them. Gawking in wonder is perfectly safe and will fill you with joy.
’Tis the season to get squatting again. Our forests are nice and soggy – and where there’s rot and leaf litter,there’s a carnival of these curious and colourful bodies to behold. It’s like a treasure hunt for grown-ups. Release the hounds and know that no animal will be harmed in this pursuit.
What is it about fungi that’s so fascinating? Well,they’re not like any other plant I know. That’s because they’re not even plants. Below the surface,they hold forests together,says Alison Pouliot in her excellent book,Underground Lovers – Encounters with Fungi.
To admirers above,they’re like random growths that make spectacularly weird appearances – and then fade away as quickly as they arrived. Musician Paul Kelly puts it well on the book’s blurb:“The world of fungi is strange,dazzling,spooky,unpredictable,friendly,deadly,sly.” From little things big things grow indeed.
The forms fungi take are surreal. Some look like coral. Others look like poached eggs. There’s the horse dung fungus,beef steak fungus,orange peel fungus,stink-horn fungus,birds nest fungus and the big red fungi with white specks that look like something out of an Enid Blyton book. (Note to newbies – these red fungi are called fly agarics and are almost always found under pine trees with Silky,Blyton’s fairy.)
Fungi are incredibly sexy. The first time I went on a forest foray with my botanist partner,Flowerman,he was searching for an elusiveplant, for heaven’s sake. Trailing behind him,I was riveted by aCortinarius archeri,a magnificent purplish fungus. I had a powerful urge to plunge my finger into its sticky flesh.
Fungi foraging with my other fun guy,Flowerman.Jo Stubhings
Like a baby needing to mouth every new thing to make sense of it,I wanted to probe the spongy top,run my fingers over the gills beneath,press the stalk – or stipe – to sense its vigour.
Now I’m a bona fide fun gal,I’ve stopped these rash and childish ways. (Unless they’re the puffball variety of fungus. You can’t imagine the joy of squeezing the fragile casing of the puffball and seeing millions of spores spew into the air. This is all in the name of helping them spread,of course. Why should puffballs have to wait around for a wombat to step on them when a half-decent human will do?)
So Flowerman and I go on a fungi foray to … a very wet forest. Sorry,as part of fungi protocol,I can’t say where we went. In line with their mysterious quarry,online fungi groups are coy about revealing the exact location of their finds.
The holy grail:the coral fungus.Jo Stubbings
This is understandable when dealing with native orchids. But fungi? I don’t see a stampede of fungi thieves racing to a site to loot and pillage (especially if they’re toxic). Chances are the spongy souls will have rotted away before they get there.
Anyway,my holy grail is the coral fungus. Seeing this bright-coloured,marine-like beauty rise from rotten old leaf litter is surreal.
We see an ink cap and a brain jelly and a dog vomit slime mould in the forest. We see dead beer cans and a discarded nappy. A leech has penetrated my sock and sucked half a teaspoon of blood from my ankle. (He was discovered later,on the hotel floor,fat and dead.)
But still no coral.
After a good three hours of fossicking,I plunge into the dense verdure for a consoling wee just before we hop into the car and head back to the hotel. My full-blooded scream has Flowerman running to my side. Is it a snake? A wild boar? A dismembered arm?
No. It’s aRamaria australiana,an orange coral with bright yellow tips. As dazzling as a sapphire.
Jo Stubbings is a freelance writer and reviewer.
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