A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident 

Last year we seeded wine cap mushroom spores into wood chips near our shed. We hoped they would yield something by now, but no luck. We have learned to be patient, as the shiitake spores we implanted into logs took years, but eventually gave us a bounty. 

During a spring weed pulling, I noticed a tight bouquet of mushrooms in the middle of our mulch pile. Interesting, I thought, but continued weeding. The next day there were dozens and the day after that the entire mulch pile was covered with hundreds of mushrooms! It was a good example of something that had spread exponentially. 

We thought the wine cap spores might have migrated from chips to mulch, though they were some distance from each other. Also, the mulch mushrooms were neither wine-colored nor were they caps. They were flat or nearly so, and tended toward various shades of beige. Kathleen contacted our mushroom guy, as guessing wrong about mushrooms can be deadly. 

He said, yes, they were wine caps. The test is not color nor shape, but a toothed ring around the stem that looks like a very small, spiked dog collar. Wine caps often grow in mulch. Their spores were not borrowed from our wood chips; they were already in the mulch when delivered. They begin the color of merlot, but fade to beige as they mature. Wine caps that grow in the sunlight are unlikely to ever attain the wine color of those found in shade. 

When I searched “wine cap” on line I found photographs of a wide variety of shapes and colors. It was hard to understand what, if anything, other than the dog collar, made them of the same family. They vary greatly in size. Some are called Godzilla mushrooms or Garden Giants. These can weigh over a pound, with a diameter of over a foot. 

The day after we discovered our mulched bounty, we found two wine-colored wine caps emerging from our wood chips, perhaps embarrassed to have been beaten to the punch by the lowly mulch pile. 

* Warning: Please do not pick & eat mushrooms, or any other forest plant, without the advice of an expert.