photo credit: Tina Caputo
David Campbell shows a mushroom before the group heads out on a 
foray with MycoAdventures. 

Heavy rains have brought flooding and power outages to some parts of the Bay Area this winter, but there’s also a bright side to all that precipitation: a bounty of wild mushrooms. This time of year, thousands of varieties begin popping up in the region’s forests—including a dozen or so edible varieties. Though some can cost 50 dollars or more by the pound in specialty stores, they’re free for the picking for those who know where to look.

“In October and November, we usually see porcini,” says Julie Schreiber of mushroom hunt organizer Wild About Mushrooms (WAM). “Then, when we come into the winter months, we have chanterelles, hedgehogs, candy caps, sometimes black trumpets. I kind of talk about them like they’re people. They have their own mood and they each decide when’s a good time to come out.”

Schreiber recently co-led a group foray with WAM founder David Campbell in Las Posadas State Forest near Angwin.

Mushrooms tend to thrive in forests where there’s plenty of rainfall, says Campbell, and many varieties grow near certain types of trees because they have a symbiotic relationship.

“Virtually all plants have some fugal relationship, but only some of them have a relationship that produces these fruiting bodies that we can walk in the forest and find,” he says. “The trees locally that we like are oaks and pines and firs and madrones. Manzanita, tanoak. All the oaks.”

Even more important than understanding where to look for wild mushrooms, Campbell says, is knowing which ones are safe to eat. “The bottom line is always to operate within your knowledge,” he says.

Learning how to identify mushrooms takes time and experience, Schreiber adds. And it’s best not to go it alone. 

“Go take a class, buy a book, join a mycological society,” she says. “Send photos to people that know or take a sample to somebody that knows. Start slow, and if there's something you don't know? Don't eat it.”

It’s not easy to spot mushrooms in the wild, Schreiber says, so it’s important to pay close attention as you’re walking through the forest. She calls it “getting your mushroom eyes on.”

“You kind of do a zig and a zag,” she explains. “You yourself are zigging and zagging. Then your eyes are kind of panning across, and you're looking for a change in color or a change in texture, or something that will just make you go, ‘Ooh, what's that?’”

With so many mushroom varieties growing wild in the North Bay region, even mushroom experts like Schreiber and Campbell can have trouble immediately identifying their finds—especially if they’ve been nibbled on by creatures in the forest. But, Schreiber says, finding familiar edible mushrooms is only part of the fun of going out on a foray.

“I’ve learned that] that the mushrooms are a bonus,” she says. “Being in the woods is really important to me. There's a feeling in the air and a calmness that comes over me as soon as I get out of the car, and I walk into the woods.”

Mushroom lovers can learn more about Wild About Mushrooms’ local forays at MycoVentures.com. You can also find information about the Sonoma County Mycological Association’s forays at SonomaMushrooms.org.