On September 29, 2024 ACT held a Mushroom Forage with Boston Mycological Club at Wills Hole/Town Forest. We welcomed about 75 people to this joint event.
After a few introductory remarks, people took to the woods, looking for all manner of fungi. We soon found a horizontal log covered with bright orange shelves; unmistakably Laetiporus sulphureus, “chicken of the woods” or “sulphur shelf.” One of our members, Carol Place, had brought her grandson Luke to the event, as he was researching mushrooms for his 6th grade project at Miriam School. He was excited to find this so quickly!
With little rain through late summer and early fall, mushroom finds were sparse, but after two hours of foraging we had two six foot tables covered in fungi. People also brought fungi they had found during the week to the event, both to share the find and for identification. Boston Myco does an amazing job helping people identify the finds, with identification ongoing for several hours. At the end of the day, all of the fungi are returned to the woods so their spores can repopulate the area next year.
As an extra bonus, people attending carried out any trash found in the conservation land. This is a policy of BMC when they visit a location, and together we collected 6 bags of trash! The Boston Mycological Club is the oldest amateur mycology club in the USA, founded in 1895. For more information on BMC go to https://bostonmyco.org/
