Tip your cap to undaunted mushroom foragers

SHARON — When it comes to mushroom scavenging, “when in doubt, throw it out,” according to Dave Paton, who led the wild mushroom workshop and walk at the Sharon Audubon Center on Sunday, July 16. 

This was the third mushroom walk held this year. The first one was held in spring (when morels were appearing in local forests); the walk was so popular that  the additional walks were scheduled.

Paton said he has been fascinated by mushrooms since his days as a childhood camper at the center. 

There are thousands of species of mushrooms. Many have curious and often interchangeable common names. Others have names that sound similar even though they are not, such as hen of the woods and chicken of the woods; there is also a mushroom called Old Man of the Woods, which, according to Paton, is rather ugly, but edible. 

Of course, “any mushroom is edible once,” Paton said. “Or maybe twice.”

Throughout the walk, Paton identified various mushrooms, often with their Latin names, that the attendees pointed out as they walked through the Audubon grounds. These were also generally grouped under edible, poisonous and not edible but not poisonous. One boy was particularly good at finding the fungi and at one point brought back a deer mushroom with a cap that was roughly the size of an adult hand. 

One enthusiast, who was wearing a shirt that said “Amateur mycologists have questionable morels,” discovered a patch of black trumpet mushrooms, which, although they smell a bit like seafood, are very sought after. Paton described them as “little black holes in the universe” because they are “very hard to find.” Morel mushrooms are also prized, but they are a spring mushroom so none were found on the trails. 

Over the course of the two-hour walk, it became clear that mushrooms can be used for just about anything one might need while in the woods; they can serve as food, help start fires and help ward off parasites. 

There are also mushrooms that are not beneficial to humans and have properties that can make your body numb for a week or even kill you. 

In addition to knowing what type a mushroom is, it is important to know where it was found. For instance, a chicken of the woods found on a hemlock tree can make people sick, but one found on an oak or maple tree is fine to eat. 

Paton said that before someone starts foraging for mushrooms, they should look up the “foolproof five and deadly dozen.” He also recommends cooking all wild edible mushrooms before they are consumed, mainly to kill anything that could end up harming you. 

He also warned that inexperienced foragers should always check with an expert before eating a mushroom; there are many cases of people misidentifying a mushroom as something benign and tasty when in fact it’s a poisonous variety.

Paton expects to be continuing the mushroom walks every third Sunday of each month through October. For updates, check the Sharon Audubon Facebook page.