Autumn Mushrooming in ADK Mountains

Autumn mushrooming in ADK is one of my favorite activities. I got a chance to go to the Adirondacks last weekend. It's a perfect time of year to hike into one of the wild boreal forests of the wilderness preserves in search of fungi. It's a cool, wet environment populated by mature yellow birch trees that grow polypore mushrooms, and soft, sun-dappled soil underfoot. A creek runs through it and there are several small lakes and bogs. The medicinal mushrooms I located were chaga, Inonotus obliquus, artists bracket, Ganoderma applanatum, and turkey tail, Trametes versicolor. The best tool I have found for removing them from trees is a dandelion remover that I can wedge behind the mushroom. I put them in canvas bags and stashed them in my backpack. On my Autumn mushrooming in ADK excursion I also encountered salmon pinkgill, amanita bisporigera the destroying angel, white cheese polypore, tinder bracket, coral slime, white and upright coral fungus, ghost pipe, orange jelly spot, angel's wings, birch bristle bracket, ochre-banded conk, fly agaric, puffballs, northern red-belt, brown roll-rim, scarlet caterpillar club, hoof fungus, ochre bracket, and a big, fresh flush of oyster mushrooms that I could not reach! This is a small example of what you can find. On other hikes I have harvested willow bracket, and reishi. It takes quite a bit of study and practice to have confidence identifying mushrooms. It's not just their appearance that counts. Where and what they are growing on is part of it since some favor just one species of tree. For example, you only find our native reishi, hemlock varnish shelf, on fallen hemlock trees. It's great fun to study the incredible variety of mushrooms even if you don't intend to harvest them. Children love plant and fungi I.D. walks with their elements of search and mystery and it's great for improving observation skills. Autumn mushrooming in ADK is also great because there are few annoying insects and the weather is cooler and less humid. The next few posts will be about the mushrooms I harvested. They are fascinating!