Special Issue, January 25 - 27, 2007
Fort Bragg Foray(s)
By Herman Brown, Greenville, CA

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On Thursday, January 25th, Cecelia and I went to Fort Bragg to stay and hunt with Sandi and Hugh Smith for our second mushroom hunt of the year. While there, we also attended the All California Club Foray at the Albion Field Station, organized by Debbie Viess and David Rust, of the Bay Area Mycological Society, along with the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz.

For most of Thursday and Friday, the four of us mainly picked for the table, collecting several small hedgehogs, golden and a few white chanterelles, Yellow-Foot Chanterelles, a few Candy Caps, and some Horn of Plenty. We saw lots and lots of other species, many new to Cecelia and me, including the all-black Sarcosoma mexicana and a small patch of Golden Fairy Clubs, the Clavulinopsis laeticolor, all collected by Hugh.

Part of Friday, and all of Saturday, we mostly collected for the All-Club ID table. On Saturday, Hugh led a few forays for the Albion event, and we found more of the same, plus many colorful hygrocybes, which included the red H. coccocinea, orange ones with yellow stalks, the H. flavescens, and the green Parrot Hygrocybe, the H. psittacina.

While at the All-Club event, we enjoyed great meals, saw a few old friends, and made a few new ones. We also got to listen to a very interesting talk about wood rotters, and I now think I know the main difference between White and Brown Rot.

On Saturday night, we all celebrated David Rust's birthday together.

Thanks again to Debbie and David for organizing the All-Club event, and Sandi and Hugh for the whole weekend.

Hugh's take on the weekend:

I found that some of my favorite places seemed to be deserts, when actually they're not. The leaves have piled up to 5 or 6 inches in lots of areas and there hasn't been any rain to pack them down. That means the mycelium can't get at them either. And with the big winds we had, there are lots of extra limbs and trees on the ground. Different than any other winter? No, same thing. Familiar spots where I know something will come up can't be seen. So now there's this huge carpet of debris, waiting for the rain. And it DID rain, at least in Albion, anyway. It was enough to get my glasses wet and make me wish I had a hat. And a rainbow! No rain, no rainbows. 

To see more from Hugh, click HERE.

From Debbie Viess:

The stars certainly were in their proper alignment for the weekend itself. The temperatures were surprisingly warmish for the field station, nestled as it is in a cold-catching hollow by the Albion River. For the first time in over twelve years I didn't have to wear my wool cape to ward off the elements! The little bit of rain that fell restricted itself to Friday afternoon, and the rest of the weekend was quite lovely. To add to the background ambience, the Gray whales were at the height of their migration South, and time spent on any nearby ocean bluff rewarded you with the sight of many whale blows, and even a few backs and tails. Thanks to Sandi Smith for that heads-up, or we would never have thought to look!

To see more from Debbie, click HERE.

The following, some with links to a picture, is the species list for the whole weekend:

From Debbie: 

158 species total. Thanks to our ace team of identifiers: Dr. Terry Henkel, Phil Carpenter, Henry Young, Doug Smith, John Brown, Herman Brown, Debbie Viess, David Rust and a special virtual guest appearance by Dr. Dennis Desjardin, who nailed our “moth-ball” fungus.

On the next two pages are pictures that were taken by Hugh Smith (www.hughsmith.org), plus a few that I took.