Bunchberry

This morning, the first day of September, is cloudy, cool (9C with a windchill of 6C), with very light rain briefly. It feels like summer is over - a summer that has passed in a flash. Some of the trees are already getting yellow leaves. I'm really hoping that fall this year will be long, sunny and beautiful. It is the Labour Day long weekend. "Labour Day is a statutory holiday in Alberta, which is a paid general holiday for employees who are eligible. Labour Day is on the 1st Monday in September every year."

Yesterday, 31 August 2018, I went on a fungi foray with a group of friends, out west of the city at West Bragg Creek. The trail we followed was the same as the one I took friend, Pam, along on 15 August. On the way home, a handful of us called in at a second spot, but the mushrooms seen that day were all in bad shape yesterday. This last short walk started with four of us and then it was just our leader and myself towards the end. Near the beginning of this second walk, we discovered that there must have been heavy rain that had caused a small stream flowing down the hill. This had turned to wet, very slippery mud, which made walking somewhat treacherous - as I soon found out! What a sight I was, covered in mud from shoulder to shoes : ) A lot of mess to clear up when I eventually got home. A good job I had driven myself out there, not car-pooled. Once again, it shows how dangerous it can be to look for fungi, lol.

We didn't see a lot of fungi, but enough to make the trip worthwhile. Our leader sent an email of photos and IDs of some of the ones we found, but there are others for which I don't have the ID. As always, any ID given for any fungus is tentative, as mushrooms are extremely difficult to identify. As far as eating wild mushrooms goes, unless you are a real expert, never take the risk of being poisoned or made very ill. Several species have deadly look-alikes. As our main Naturalist in the city always says: "All mushrooms can be eaten, sometimes only once!" An interesting little book is "Wild Edible Mushrooms of Alberta: a Field Guide" by Tom Cervenka, published by Northern Bushcraft.

northernbushcraft.com/wild-edible-mushrooms-of-alberta.php

People tend to have different opinions about mushrooms. Some go searching just for ones that are edible and can be collected to be eaten, while others go to look for what species they can find. My reason is to simply take photos, leaving each one in place so that others can see the beauty that I was lucky enough to see.

It is important to note that it is illegal to pick mushrooms in national or provincial parks, protected areas such as ecological or special reserves, and recreation areas.