Mushroom ID Class

Fort Stevens Park Ranger Dane Osis is a mushroom maven! He really knows his fungi.  And he's amazingly generous with his time and knowledge. Every fall he gives many talks on mushroom identification for beginners.  We caught one of his talks at the Tillamook Forest Center.  I've been wanting to learn more about mushrooms for years, ever since I caught on to  the fact that in the Pacific Northwest, the fall mushroom season is quite as phenomenal as the spring wildflower season. Mushrooms are everywhere, in every imaginable shape, size and color.  How to learn about them?  Dane had some very practical advice which I found quite useful.  He advised that especially if you are interested in foraging, it's good to have a goal of learning just one or two each year.  There's no need to learn how to identify thousands of different kinds of mushrooms at once, and you're just setting yourself up for frustration. He also advised to get a reliable guidebook- All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms   by David Arora is an excellent choice- and make sure that the mushroom you are hoping to identify meets each and every criteria listed in your guide before you decide your identification is correct. Simple!  We also learned that LBMs (little brown mushrooms) are infamously hard to identify, and probably not a worthwhile pursuit for the beginner. After Dane's talk, we rambled in the Tillamook State Forest for a while, taking in its quiet beauty and- of course! - looking for mushrooms.

Tiny baby salmon in a tank at the Tillamook Forest Center.