Yet Another Dose of Propaganda (April 1 2007)

New Arora Book Coming Soon

The long-awaited revision of David Arora’s masterful mushroom reference guide is about to hit local bookstores. In Mushrooms ReMystified, Arora has taken some dramatic steps toward making mushroom identification more accessible to the general public. Some readers might be in for a shock, though, as they learn of some of the book’s new features. “I took out all the confusing keys,” says the author, from his comfortable home on 100 acres in Anchor Bay, California, recognizing that most people just look at the pictures first anyway when they need to identify a mushroom. “And if it’s poisonous, I just call it a toadstool,” he says. In our first preview of the new book, we did notice that the Toadstools section is quite extensive.

MRM includes color plates of Arora’s junco feeding station, a whole bear roasting on the hearth, and his favorite fish in the koi pond.

Readers will truly enjoy Arora’s attempt at redefining fungal systematics. “Almost all the mushrooms in MDM are West Coast mushrooms with European species names. In MRM, I’ve reclassified and reorganized the genera,” says Arora. All 2,000 or so species now have a California flavor, starting with Agaricus arorae, Amanita arorae, Boletus californicus, Cantharellus californicus, Russula arorae, and so on.

Even with the publication of this new scientific tome, mainstream academia continues to reject Arora’s body of work until he has earned a “PhD” after his name. Colleagues have peppered UC Santa Cruz Professor Emerita Tanya Hafling with questions about Arora’s academic pursuits. She says he once aspired to study under Dr. Harry Theirs at SFSU, but he just wasn’t taken seriously because he had long hair and a beard, and he was from Santa Cruz. (The Duff has learned that Arora often spends part of each day tackling online mycology courses through the University of Phoenix.)

Long Distance Forays Abolished

Nate Segraves, Minister of Long Distance Forays, says the FFSC will no longer hold so-called long distance forays. With gas prices already well over $3.00 per gallon, this might be a wise move. Henceforward, Seagraves will be known as Minister of Medium Distance Forays. “We’re just shrinking things up a bit so people don’t have to drive so far,” he says. “Just hunt in your own yard, like Henry Young,” he offered. Segraves chided members for wanting to go to faraway places like Eldorado county, where nobody ever finds many mushrooms anyway.

Segraves hinted that if people want truly long distance forays, they should join NAMA. Some members have cried foul, though, and say they suspect that Nate simply wants to spend more time at home on the weekends with his new baby.

Brown Wax Bags No Longer Available

A serious problem has arisen in the Santa Cruz mushrooming community. The company that has made brown wax bags for over 100 years has gone out of business. In the future, FFSC members may be forced to use the less desirable opaque wax bags manufactured by Waxtex© Corporation. Some members have tried reusing their bags, but they’ve found that fungi like Suillus pungens and Hygrophorus eburneus make this responsible practice difficult to follow.

One member, who has secretly stockpiled eight cases of the more popular and eco-friendly brown wax bags, refuses to share with others. He fears, rightly so, that if he were forced to carry Waxtex© bags in the field, he might be confused as a member of that mushroom group in San Francisco.

Recipe Ingredients Questioned

Our roving Duff reporter has learned that some of the supposed “wild mushrooms” in potluck items at a recent FFSC event were really store-bought mushrooms purchased in the New Leaf Community Market produce section. The fungal substitutions were initially uncovered by supersleuth Vernetta McGuire and confirmed via DNA analysis in the new mycology laboratory at UC Santa Cruz by Professor Hardly A. Clade.

Minister of Culinary Events McGuire is very frustrated by this unethical development. “Button mushrooms in our food,” wailed McGuire. “That is not acceptable. Anybody can buy mushrooms,” she says. The guilty parties, who by the way are known to have vast stores of dried wild mushrooms at home, have been ordered to perform 500 hours of community service collecting real wild mushrooms for this year’s holiday dinner. It is hoped that they won’t retaliate by sneaking blue-staining mushrooms into their potluck items.

Ministers Take Minister Thing Seriously

Certain leaders of the FFSC have been seen wearing new white collars when attending meetings and shopping at Costco. “Just call me Pastor,” is the new watchword among elected officers. This habit began right after several FFSC “ministers” were spotted in a redwood grove outfitted in unusual mushroom-collecting garb: full length black dresses and black suits. Longtime member Phil Carpenter, who has the air of a Catholic priest, says he no longer has time for collecting mushrooms thanks to his burgeoning sideline making knives, but he does like the look and feel of the new collar. “Morels are overrated,” says Pastor Carpenter, “but morals are forever.”

Some members say this demand goes a little far and will continue to call ministers by their first names. However, the FFSC bylaws clearly state that officers of the club are called ministers. “We feel this just makes things a little more formal,” says Pastor Bob Sellers. “Besides, we love the white collars.”

Member’s Ingenious Mushroom Hunting Method

Last weekend, a foray participant developed a new method of searching for mushrooms. Instead of looking for mushrooms in the leaf litter and investigating the obvious “mushrumps,” as they’re known in mushperson lingo, she brought along a broom and literally swept her way through the forest. “A broom doubles as a walking stick,” says Ima Forager, “and the yellow handle makes it easy to find if you get distracted,” says Forager, who is known for being easily distracted. This ingenious new method of uncovering hidden fungi has spread like wildfire. CEO Bill White likes the idea so much, that he’s asked the ministers to approve a new Costco broom for each new and renewing member in 2007 as a way to increase mushroom collecting efficiency.

New Club Offshoot: WFSC

Owing to the popularity of winemaking in the FFSC, a new auxiliary club has formed called the Wine Federation of Santa Cruz (WFSC). President Jerry Moss says the club will hold its meetings at the same time and location as regular meetings of the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz, so that the group’s members can “blend in.” WFSC members will only be identified by a secret handshake, a wink of the left eye, and their dark red tannin-stained tongues.

Foray Participant Bonks Head

“It was raining hard,” whined one of last weekend’s foray participants at Marshall Field. “I was all bundled up, I couldn’t see, and I banged my head on a tree branch,” said member A. Rita Viess, who normally uses a pseudonym instead of her real name. As a result of this incident and to reduce the potential for lawsuits, FFSC foray leaders will conduct pre-foray trips to clean up any low hanging branches. Foray leaders have also promised to stand by with extra umbrellas for members to carry in the woods. (You-know-who who moved up north carries an umbrella, too, and he rarely carries a collecting basket to keep his hands free for plucking boletes!)

Salmon Declared Official Fish of the FFSC

As part of negotiations to encourage Bill White to undertake another term as CEO, the FFSC ministers have voted to make salmon the official fish. Bill and Gerri are of course thrilled but not surprised by this action. "We eat salmon for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so what's not to like?" says Gerri. "When you keep catching 30 plus pound fish, there's only so much room in the freezer."

Plans are also underway to declare an official plant, and everybody's favorite so far is Toxicodendron diversilobum. The ministers tabled a motion to declare an official club mushroom, feeling that Clathrus ruber would be too controversial.

Coprophylic Fungi Workshop

As part of a series of beginner’s workshops, join presenter John Allen on April 1st for this immersion into the world of dung fungi. No reservations required.

“Gazing at this wonderful symbiosis of mushroom and dung... Somehow I could feel their aura and I knew that they had been calling me from afar to come and visit them.” (Note: This is an actual quote from "Close Encounters of the Panaeolus Kind" by John W. Allen, taken wholly out of context.)

Next month: Growing Funny Mushrooms in Glass Jars.

FFSC Members Demand Common Names in Meetings

In a move typical of the independent style of the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz, several members have circulated a petition to make common names the official language of mushroom hunters. “These speakers come in here and start with the pretty pictures, then blithely move right on to Latin. Who knows Latin, anyway? It’s a dead language,” said Minister of Propaganda Debra Johnson. “Just give the common names,” she said. “That’s all people remember anyway.”

CEO Bill White asks, “What if the common name is something like “Trompette de la Morte?” We can’t just call them “black trumpets.” This move may cause some inter-club problems, however, and will be very controversial to implement. Richard Lyness, Minister of Programs, says that if this proposal becomes part of the bylaws, it might mean not sharing speakers with the other clubs, especially the Bay Area Mycological Society whose agenda is reputedly “more science-oriented.”

Laugh Off Contest Winner Announced

The Annual Laugh Off Contest at last month’s general meeting was quite a hoot! As you know, contestants are asked to give their best laugh, while looking in the microscope at divergent gill trama of an LBM. In the end, it all came down to two contestants: John Brown and Horst Kuhlmann. After almost an hour of deliberation, the judges selected a winner. Judge Diana Chase confessed privately that Horst’s laugh sounded more like a cough, and she just couldn’t vote for him over Brown’s more Santa Claus-like booming outbursts. The victor was awarded a pair of Levi© jeans. Brown took the microphone (as if he needed one) and thanked his parents for raising him. Holding his prize aloft, Brown said, “Hey, these things could keep my legs warm on those cold, rainy days in the woods.”

Beginner’s Workshop: Poison Oak Identification

Ever get a terrible rash on your hands and face (and elsewhere sometimes if you were foolish enough to pee in the woods) after a mushroom hunt? Here’s the perfect solution: an in-depth three hour session on how to identify Western Poison Oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum or Rhus diversiloba). You’ll learn fascinating tidbits like:

• Look! three leaves

• Poison oak is the most common allergy in the country

• Poison oak was discovered by David Douglas (1799-1834) on Vancouver Island (Douglas fir is also named after him), and

• Technu really works!

The day begins with a foray to collect samples for ID in the workshop. Meet at Marshall Field at 10:00 AM. The foray meeting place is 3.8 miles from somewhere-or-other intersection down the road a ways. For more information and directions, email workshop coordinator Marje Young.