What is a Mushroom?

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc.

Mushroom Day, Bird Club and a Master Gardener Lecture featuring Door County Parks are the public educational programs this week, while out in the preserves,  EarthWorks after school group, the Big Plant, Habitat Healers, Bio-Blitz, Wetland Monitoring  and Fish Monitoring programs  are all underway. At the end of this week, our team of archeologists will arrive and start preparing The Cove Site for excavation. It is May at Crossroads!!

Mushroom  Day is new to Crossroads because the Door Peninsula Mushroom Club, under the leadership of Mike Marit and Charlotte Lukes, is a new organization. Their first celebration of mushrooms will be held  Saturday, May 6, 2023, from 1 to 3 PM in the Collins Learning Center.

This free  indoor event will provide information on safe mushroom foraging, indoor and outdoor cultivation of fungi, artistic endeavors and furthering your knowledge of the mycological world. Participants will learn how to join and stay connected. Charlotte Lukes will present a 30-minute slide program on safe mushroom foraging with photos of the more common edibles and poisonous species in the county beginning at 1:30 PM.

So what is a mushroom?  Recently, the Crossroads Book Club read and discussed  “Lab Girl” by Hope Jahrren.  In chapter 3, she wrote, “You may think  a mushroom is a fungus…..Every toadstool from the deliciously edible to the deadly poisonous, is merely a sex organ that is attached to something whole, complex and hidden. Underneath every mushroom is a web of stringy hyphae that may extend for kilometers, wrapping around countless clumps of soil and holding the landscape together. 

“The ephemeral mushroom appears briefly about the surface while the webbing lives for years within a darker richer world.”

A very small minority of these fungi–just five thousand species–have strategically entered into a deep and enduring truce with plants. The cast their stringy webbing around and through the roots of trees, sharing the burden of drawing water into the trunk. They also mine the soil for rare metals, such as manganese, copper and phosphorus, then present them to the tree as precious gifts of the magi.”

Just about the time morels start popping up at Crossroads, migrating birds are filling the trees and shrubs so this month, the Crossroads Bird Club will hold its first outdoor bird hike. Bird Club isn’t really an organization, but rather a flock of folks that share a love of birds. Everyone is welcome–come once, come monthly…the first Tuesday of each month at 6:30.

Door County Parks are great places to see migrating birds, mushrooms and the magnificent trees that depend on fungi. The Door County Master Gardner’s lecture series will bring Door County Parks Manager Tim Kazmierczak to Crossroads at 6:30 May 4  to present  “You Gotta Love Door County Parks”. Kazmierczak will present an overview of the 20 parks  for which he is he is responsible.  He will discuss when the parks were established, where they are located and what they offer for residents and visitors. He will also explain who makes up the Parks Department and the roles they play. 

Volunteers are always needed for our Habitat Healers program. The group meets every Saturday from (9:00-11:00.) Pre-registration is not required. Volunteers of all abilities and ages are welcome. Our Restoration Team will provide instruction and equipment, but volunteers should dress appropriately.