This quick update will cover our recent project with Dr. Rytas Vilgalys, Professor of Biology at Duke University. Dr. Rytas was kind enough to do some PCR DNA and get an ITS sequence of some of our various collections of Pleurotus that were found growing on pine wood.

Over the past 2 years, James and I have been on the hunt for an oyster mushroom that grows on pine. To explain, I should first give a little background about these particular fungi. They tend to favor deciduous wood, especially poplar trees in Colorado. To most fungi, pine wood isn’t something easy to eat. Coniferous trees contain natural resins that tend to contain chemicals that are quite anti-fungal. This does not mean that fungi cannot eat coniferous wood, it is just quite difficult for them to do. However, Pleurotus are special fungi. They have discovered a quite efficient method of decomposing their substrate, excreting powerful digestive enzymes able to breakdown many different types of freshly cut wood. There is even a type of Pleurotus that can grow on cactus skeletons! The Pleurotus that James and I had found were growing from the cut stumps of pine trees and a spruce log growing at 10,000′ in elevation. These were cultured in our lab in Denver and were eventually sent to Dr. Rytas. He was interested in them because of their unique habitats they were found growing in and was wondering, as we were, if they were a possible new species of Pleurotus. He also received a few control collections of Pleurotus pulmonarius from various locations in the state, growing from cottonwood trees. These were tested against the mushrooms that were found growing on conifers. This testing is basically done by taking known sets of genes from a specific species of fungi and testing samples of DNA against those genes to see if they are similar enough to be the same genetic group (hopefully that wasn’t too over simplified?). Much to our surprise, every specimen came back as P. pulmonarius! It is well documented that P. pulmonarius grows occasionally from conifer, but these specimens also had unique morphological features that were distinctly different, even with indoor grown mushrooms in a controlled environment! Just goes to show that morphology sometimes can tell you very little about what type of fungi you have. We now know that our cultures of oysters collected from these conifer habitats are P. pulmonarius, but have somehow developed a unique set of digestive enzymes to deal with the oils in the wood that tend to inhibit fungi.

The reason James and I are extremely interested in pine loving oysters is because the Rocky Mountains are plagued with a pine eating beetle that is destroying our forests by the entire mountainside. The general way to deal with this problem (due to the extreme fire danger it creates) is to cut down the infected trees and pile them in large piles. They are used mainly for fire wood, but the pine loving  mushrooms would decompose the wood much faster, creating larger soil depth. Paul Stamets has a discussion in his book, Mycelium Running, about the honey mushroom and its method of creating a deeper humus depth. Many of these plagues, whether they be a fungus or an insect, may look very disastrous to the environment to humans. This is only because of our perception of time. The trees that once stood as a forest are now decomposing, increasing the potential of the forest to create more life. As soil depth increases, the forest can house more and more plants. We would like to make these Pleurotus part of the solution to this large problem we are facing today.

Recently James, Ashley, and I got the opportunity to visit The Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi at The Denver Botanic Gardens. The herbarium is located at the York St. Gardens in the Capitol Hill district of downtown Denver. Ever since I was a child, I have loved to visit this place. The grounds are very extensive and cover many different landscaping techniques. But one of my favorite places is the impressive glass conservatory that seems to tower over the gardens. It is hard to miss. When you walk inside this giant glass bubble, the first thing you notice is how wonderful the atmosphere is, and all around you are the most interesting plants. Many visitors to the Denver Botanic Gardens are unaware, however, that many different types of fungi are just below their feet…

Ashley and I were running a little late. Unfortunately it still took us a while to find the staircase we were told about, and after several locked doors, looks from various confused garden staff, and walking in concentric circles, we honed in on the basement door. It then took us several more minutes to navigate our way through various hallways, until we came upon a sign next to a door that read, ‘Research & Herbarium’. I was thinking, “This place is awesome already”. We followed the signs for fungi, which was really easy for us. To me, it was like they put up signs that said ‘free ice cream, this way’ because I was resisting the urge to run down the quiet hallways. A sure sign of the truly obsessed. Finally we heard the familiar voices of James and Ellen. Ellen Jacobson is an absolutely wonderful woman whom we first met through the Colorado Mycological Society. She has been a long time member of CMS and is an indespensible resource on all things fungi… and other things too! She volunteers her time at the herbarium, helping Vera Evenson (author of Colorado Mushrooms) and others indentify and file all sorts of different fungi. In fact, The Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi is the most complete collection in the Rocky Mountain Region preserving 22,000 specimens, covering 300 genera and 2,500 species. The storage system is pretty state of the art. Huge hanging walls of cabinets are suspended from the ceiling. Each set is on a track, and they move together and apart with motors to create a hallway between them. Inside the cabinets are many white boxes that house the dried samples of the mushroom species. Each has a card inside that describes the location found, date, collector, and any other information pertinent to the specific sample. These samples are all categorized according to their relationship to each other. The Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi is one of the only herbariums of fungi that stores their samples in this manner. Most store them in alphabetical order, which doesn’t make it as easy to find the exact specimen you are looking for. Here, it is very simple to find a specific species because every type of fungi in the case you are looking at are all related to each other. The only downside to this method of categorizing the fungi is that if a species is renamed into a different group, usually due to the recent genetic mapping of the mushroom genome, the specimens in question must be refiled. Ellen said this happens quite often as she pointed to a stack of cards and boxes waiting to be refiled. It is a constant battle. There were also about a hundred books on fungi in their library whose shelves bordered the walls. One Ellen showed us in particular was the original log started by Sam Mitchel. On the first page, she showed us the very first mushroom submitted to the herbarium in 1964. The binding had completely worn away, and it was amazing to see how far the herbarium has come in the past 45 years. They are now working on entering all of this data into the computer which will make accessing the herbarium records much, much easier. But they still use the old method of storing information that Sam came up with. Each new specimen still gets a paper card inside its own preservation box, still written by hand. It was an amazing process to witness. While looking through several cases of specimens, I came upon a box with a fungus inside that I had never heard of: Battarrea stevenii. Because it is a puffball-like fungus (a gasteroid fungi) , it lives in very hot and arid conditions. But what I found most intriguing was its over 2 foot long, very fibrous stem that Ellen explained is almost completely buried in the ground. This is so they have a ‘tap root’ that allows them to access water very deep underground. How interesting is that? We would like to thank Ellen Jacobson for taking time out of her busy schedule to show us around, and the Denver Botanic Gardens for letting us visit. That’s all for now!

Welcome to the brand new home for the Amateur Mycologists. We are an organization that focuses on applications for mycellium beyond mycophagy (besides just eating mushrooms, what other ‘super powers’ do fungi have?). The environment around us is altered everyday through our negligent actions, and we need to lead the charge to save our planet. Our mission is to repair our environment through fungi… and have fun while doing it! This website is dedicated to all who share this passion or are just interested in learning about these new green technologies. As of now, just to give a quick update, we are culturing around 30 different species that are native to the Rocky Mountain region. These mushrooms will be used for all of our up and coming projects to remediate land in the state of Colorado. Check back soon for a list of species, as well as more info about what’s happening with ‘the troop’ this fall!