About Alabama and Fungi

Finally I've found a website that refers to Alabama and fungi which is not this one. Actually, it refers to one of my favorite fungally-derived products, beer. Not that I have anything against bread, I guess you could say I like fermentation in many forms (though definitely not all forms). Anyway, this site has some information on some of Alabama's rather obscure blue laws. For example, I didn't know that beer had to be below 6% alcohol, or that you can only buy containers smaller than 1 pint (and I'm not sure where kegs fit into the whole picture). These folks are trying to get the laws changed so we can buy half-litres of barleywine here, instead of in Georgia.

Happy Birthday, Hank Williams

That would be Hank Senior, of course. Enjoy some of your favorite Hank Williams tunes today. Among my favorites are "Crazy heart", "Lonesome Whistle (I Heard That)", "Kaw-liga", "Setting the Woods on Fire", and "Jambalaya on the Bayou". As far as I know, Hank never sang about fungi, which is a shame, but what can you do?

Boletes!

Howdy, Y'all.
The rain has delivered! While in the field, I came upon these boletes, which I'm pretty sure are Boletus rubellus. I'm not sure if I'm going to try eating them, given what the mushroom
expert has to say about this species. Arora says this species may be edible, but as the old saw goes, "there are old mycologists, and there are bold mycologists, but there are few old, bold mycologists".
These particular mushrooms were in a pine plantation with some oaks mixed in, which has a pretty high water table. The stipes (stems) are pretty thin compared to other boletes, which can be quite bulbous. And, of course, there's the blue stain reaction, as demonstrated at the top right, there.

Boletes are ectomycorrhizal, which explains why they tend to be found only in certain types of forests.

Rained upon

Hey y'all,
Just been out in the field again, looking at tree crowns. It's been rainy off and on, and I've been waiting to see all that rain promises... I'm really hoping to find some boletes, especially ones that have been mycoparasitized by Hypomyces spp. to send to my good myconerd buddy Greg.
While I haven't seen the boletes, I did see a few things out there, some Marasmius, some quince rust on hawthorn, lots of earthstars, and lots of other typical fungi that one has to resign oneself to in periods of prolonged dryness. Hopefully, I be able to get some pix up soon.

Guess who probably won't be blogging anytime soon

A little more Alabamiana. Harper Lee, author of "To Kill a Mockingbird", just made a public statement for the first time since, well, probably before I was born. Congrats to her and Hank Aaron for these plaudits.

Chicken Rocket

Not so much a fungus thang, as perhaps an Alabama thang. We've recently invested $2.21 in a Chicken Rocket for the preparation of "drunken chicken". The idea is fairly simple: take 1 chicken, and 1/2 -3/4 can of beer (okay half a can and drink the other half), and some delicious seasoning rub. Put the beer can up the chicken's (ahem) larger cavity and rub it all over with the salt. Stuff a potato or MUSHROOM in the other smaller cavity (neckhole) to prevent the goodness from escaping. Then put on the grill or smoker for an hour or two. Eat, and be merry (but I wouldn't recommend drinking the rest of that particular beer, you know where IT'S been).
Before

After


Yum yum yum yum yum. Good stuff.
We recently tried this with Yuengling's, which is now readily available here, which we call "Yuengling up the yin-yang"

Dead Man's Foot

The fungus of the moment is Pisolithus tinctorius, the dead man's foot (or also the "dog turd fungus". It is so named for the shape of the fruiting body, which erupts out of the earth like the start of a zombie invasion.
Actually, this fungus is one of the "good guys", in that it is ectomycorrhizal. Okay, so decaying otherwise recalcitrant matter is not bad, and being a pathogen is bad if you're a pathogen that people want to use is bad from the perspective of the people who are in competition with the pathogen, but mycorrhizal species are considered "good" by most people. Mycorrhizas (alt. mycorrhizae) are considered mutualistic symbioses between fungi and plant roots. Fungi, being fundamentally microorganisms, can explore the soil much better than plant roots, because of their high surface-volume ratio. Thus they can get at nutrients like phosphorus and other elements that plants need from soil better than the plants themselves. In return for their superior soil scavenging services, the fungi get paid in carbon, sugar, photosynthate, which the plants make from carbon dioxide in the air and send down to their roots.
Spores of dead man's foot are commonly sown in with pine seedlings to help them to get established.