Marin hike: Rain is finally here and so are fungi; head to Point Reyes to find them

Now that rains are gracing the thirsty hills and valleys of Marin with badly needed water replenishment, those in the know know it’s time to look around for the seasonal appearance of fungi. Whether it’s a forest of toadstools lurking beneath a redwood, a striking Amanita rising red through leaf cover or something that looks like an overbuilt ant mound but isn’t, after the rains is the time to fungus fans to find their favorites.

Being somewhat of a novice to the activity, I recently accompanied a family of said fans on a hike through several trails fanning off from around the Point Reyes visitor center, including the Woodpecker Nature and Mount Wittenburg trails. To echo poet Mary Oliver, we were together that day in the woods not only because we love each other but also to share fungus finds in the surrounding forest.

The day proved scant in terms of finds, but we got lucky with a few. One of the first fungi we came across looked, to my untutored eyes, nothing at all like fungus. Without my companion expert, I would have taken the softball-sized thing for a mound of soil, the kind that ants or digging animals push up when creating their underground homes. And if not that, it looked like something a large herbivore might have pooped out. Instead, it was Pisolithus arrhizus or “dead man’s foot,” an earthball fungus also known by many other names, including “horse dung fungus” (easy to see why), “dog turd fungus” (ditto), dyeball and “least attractive fungi.” Although it is not safe to eat, it produces a dark gel-like substance that is used in some places as a dye, hence dyeball.

Our next find was what my expert informed me was called LBM (little brown mushroom). That’s shorthand among the mycology (fungus-studying) crowd when visuals aren’t enough to readily distinguish one LBM from another.

We were able to distinguish a beautiful white artist’s conk or artist’s bracket (Ganoderma applanatum) clinging to a bark overhang on a fallen tree, and another bracket fungus, this one shiny black, lying on the ground.

The Woodpecker Nature Trail is a short loop that traverses a variety of habitats and tends to keep the promise of its name. We sighted numerous woodpeckers, along with a flock of skittish quail that preferred running to winging it. A curious and curiously insouciant pocket gopher scoped us out at the beginning of the trail, but it was the only mammal we spotted on the loop. The Mount Wittenberg trail is a four-mile-ish out and back that gains a lot more ground to the summit of the eponymous mountain, at 1,407 feet.

If you’re fungi-curious like I am or an expert like my companions, either way, you’ll want to check out a couple of fungus-related events at Point Reyes coming up in January. One is for fungus collectors, the Fungus Collecting Foray, on Jan. 7, and the other is the Fungus Fair, which follows on Jan. 8. The finds from the first event will furnish the fungi for the second event, and with that, I will abandon the fungi-related alliteration.

According to the Bay Area Mycological Society, Point Reyes harbors more than 500 species of mushrooms and its relatives. Although foraging for them is not allowed on many public lands in Marin, visitors to the Point Reyes National Seashore are allowed to collect 2 gallons plus one more mushroom per adult per day, for noncommercial use. No one should ever eat a fungus without ensuring an absolutely correct ID, as some toxic species can look a lot like edible versions.

Getting there: There are two options west from Highway 101. The first is to take Lucas Valley Road to Nicasio Valley Road and then on to the Point Reyes/Petaluma Road, taking a right at Platform Bridge Road and then on to Bear Valley Road. The second is to take Sir Francis Drake to Bear Valley Road. The trailhead for the Woodpecker Nature Trail starts just past where the horses are pastured and the Mount Wittenburg trailhead sits a little farther down the path toward Divide Meadow, but you’ll likely find fungi along almost any trail in the park.

Emily Willingham is a Marin science journalist, book author and biologist. You can find her on Twitter @ejwillinghamphd or on Mastodon at ejwillingham@mastodon.social.