Oct
19
More Mushrooms
Posted by: lmairs | October 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment
I surrender.
Take a look at this magnificent sample of nature’s offerings. Stunning. It’s a coral mushroom, otherwise known as coral hydnum in the family hericium coralloides.
Jim Kalnin and Lois Huey- Heck arrived on the weekend to begin installing their work for the Fall Projects. Nancy volunteered for ladder duty and we made our way into the park to scout out locations for the work. Not far into the woods I spotted this beauty from the corner of my eye. Growing out of a fallen cottonwood there were two large coral mushrooms, one about a foot long and three inches tall and the other about nine inches in diameter and four inches tall.
As luck would (or wouldn’t in my case) have it, Jim Kalnin is a bit of a quasi expert on wild mushrooms. “I’ve eaten over a hundred varieties of wild mushrooms, he said. I used to pick them where I grew up in Manitoba.” I warn him not to talk about it, I try to explain that I can’t be trusted with this kind of information (see last blog for more on this). At that point his partner Lois interjects, “He’s 67, and he’s still here.” Okay, proof. I tried my best not to listen but failed miserably.
Jim demonstrated the keys to determining if a mushroom is poisonous or not and shared the wisdom of the most important lesson in wild mushroom hunting and that is to be able to identify the toxic ones first. Now that makes sense.
We marvelled at them. The purity of the colour tone, creamy white with chocolate dipped tufts like a perfectly baked Pavlova, the foot emerging from thick cottonwood bark established a firm foothold embedded in the crevices. Each eruption peaked, and dropped off the ends were vertical stalactite tendrils giving the impression of something both alien and familiar, something that may be from the ocean or may be from a subterranean cave, something that was white and precious with otherworldly notions of scarcity and sacredness, something that needed to be protected and honoured. Something that was found in this very place called Woodhaven. I am in awe, once again, at the wisdom and foresight of Joan and Jim Burbridge. We are so fortunate to have this place in our community and so very fortunate to be able to bring art onto this land in a celebration of collaboration and response with nature.
Sunday, October 24, 1pm Fall Projects Opening