Fungi at your fingertips: New book showcases Pacific Northwest’s mushroom riches

Noah Siegel mushroom-hunting in Snohomish County.

Fall is prime fungi time in the Pacific Northwest, and Mushrooms of Cascadia: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fungi of the Pacific Northwest makes identification rewarding for both experts and novices alike.

The paperback book, co-authored by Noah Siegel and Christian Schwarz, was published last month by Backcountry Press, just in time for our region’s seasonal bounty of mushrooms, some of which (chanterelles, porcini, matsutake, to name a coveted few) are shipped to gourmands and restaurants across the globe. They also co-authored Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fungi of Coastal Northern California (Ten Speed Press, 2016).

Engaging text and color photography (primarily by Siegel) offer portraits of 750-plus species, enlivened by the authors’ profound delight in their subject. The user-friendly format includes cap, gill and stipe descriptions; odor, spore deposit color, edibility and toxicity, preferred habitat and more. 

L-R: Pholiota adiposa, Cortinarius violaceus, Ramaria sp.

Siegel was instantly and irrevocably enamored with the West Coast’s fungal abundance during his first visit in 2010. Since then he has devoted many months every year to collecting fungi and compiling data in western North America. As one of the nation’s most respected field mycologists, he received the 2022 North American Mycological Association’s Award for Contributions to Amateur Mycology. He is currently working with co-authors Kate Mohatt and Steve Trudell on Mushrooms of Alaska to be published by Timber Press in 2025.

The Pacific Northwest is internationally renowned as a fungi-rich wonderland. “You have a large forested region that gets abundant rainfall. Where you have forest and rain, that usually equals mushrooms,” Siegel said. “And then there’s also a lot of variation in habitat – you go from coast to mountaintop in a relatively short space. So you’ve got some of the wettest areas in the US to some really dry areas in the span of 50 miles – within that small area, a great diversity of habitat leads to a great diversity of fungi.”

The Pacific Golden Chanterelle, one of our region’s most coveted edible mushrooms, as presented in the field guide.

Siegel, along with other fungi experts, will be speaking at the Puget Sound Mycological Society’s Annual Wild Mushroom Show Oct. 19 and 20 at Shoreline College. This much-anticipated event draws thousands of visitors who ohh and ahh over elaborate displays of just-harvested species, attend lectures by myco-experts, sample gourmet mushroom preparations, and enjoy fungi-related books, tools, crafts, resources and more. Siegel and other pros are on hand to help attendees identify mushrooms they’ve picked from their yards or local greenspaces.

The book’s map of Cascadia’s sub-regions, which span from southwestern British Columbia to northern California.

The book can be purchased at the show or online from Backcountry Press. An ebook version designed for (weightless!) ease of use in the field is also available for purchase.

Siegel recommends the following resources for those seeking to learn more about our region’s fungi:

Puget Sound Mycological Society

Snohomish County Mycological Society

Fruits of the Forest:  A Field Guide to Pacific Northwest Edible Mushrooms by Daniel Winkler

Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest by Steve Trudell

www.inaturalist.org

— By Clare McLean

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