Hi 🙂 Welcome to the third From Finn’s Forest.
Settings are important to a story and poetry. For me, I use my forest a lot for the backdrop. My curiosity takes me to many different places where it can focus on the forest seasons, fauna, or flora. After an over-abundant year of rain and snow this year, we have had a huge crop of mushrooms. They don’t last very long because something eats them immediately. Unless the fairies are dining on all of them, I decided it was time to do a bit of research.
After some mushroom investigation, I believe we have a couple of large patches of death cap mushrooms. I didn’t do a suggested test of putting the mushroom gill down on black paper to see what color their spores were to confirm this, but they certainly fit the description, especially their gills, and stock. Nor have I gotten close enough to see if they have a slight ammonia smell either. There is another deadly mushroom very common in California the destroying angel. I don’t remember seeing those, but maybe I missed them.
Besides the two poisonous varieties, there are many types of edible California mushrooms that might be growing in our forest that include: porcini, candy caps (seen a few of these), chanterelles (they are here), morels (we have an abundance of these) chicken of the woods, coral, truffles (I want to find these!), turkey tails (yes, have them), apricot belly, and boletes.
In taking my daily walks on the Magical trail, I’ve noticed that mushrooms don’t stay around long. If what I believe truly are death cap mushrooms, then what can eat the poisonous mushroom we can’t? One answer is squirrels. We have an abundance of gray and Douglas squirrels who are very well-fed. Rabbits can eat them, while humans will feel this mushroom’s ill effects that can easily lead to death.
Although the forest gives us beauty and even food we can eat, some things can kill us too. I don’t like to eat mushrooms so there will never be an issue of me getting a bad mushroom. But, what if a character desires to use a death cap to deal with another character in a story? Or someone in your story wanted to use medicinal properties from a mushroom? Lost in a forest and running out of things to eat? Knowledge could keep your characters alive—or not.
There are so many possibilities around us. If only we head outside and wonder about things around us—down to the tiniest of weeds coming up through the sidewalk crack. I will keep exploring all those possibilities here in Finn’s Forest and my stories.
There will be no post next week due to the holiday. Happy Fourth of July for those in the USA.
Embrace that inner child by honoring your curiosity! D. L. Finn
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