CBC
Sun, August 27, 2023
Some samples of the newly named species of hedgehog mushroom - hydnum atlanticum. (Submitted by Alfredo Justo - image credit)
While all the wet weather this summer has resulted in challenging times for some New Brunswick farmers, it's been the opposite for people foraging or studying mushrooms.
Heading into the peak season for mushrooms, there's an abundance of them in New Brunswick.
Alfredo Justo, head of botany and mycology at the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John, confirmed the recent wet weather has helped.
"It has been a really good year ... for example, chanterelles started fruiting this year in early July," said Justo in an interview with CBC's Shift.
"Whenever you have a year like these with lots of rain, you're going to see a lot of the summer edibles, before the fall season, fruiting in July and August, and that's what we're seeing this year."
Be careful what mushrooms you eat
Justo said there's a growing interest in mushrooms in general, and he sees it when he's out in the field. But he cautions enthusiasts to make sure they know what they're picking.
Alfredo Justo is the curator of botany and mycology for the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John.
'Whenever you have a year like this with lots of rain, you're going to see a lot of the summer edibles, before the fall season ... and that's what we're seeing this year,' says Alfredo Justo, curator of botany and mycology at the N.B. Museum in Saint John. (Submitted by Alfredo Justo)
"If you're foraging for mushrooms for eating, you always have to be 100 per cent certain of what you are collecting," he said. "You have to have basic knowledge of the most common edibles and also the most common and more dangerous toxic species that occur in your area."
Jessika Gauvin is president of the MycoNB Society, and said her mother taught her to forage for mushrooms from a very young age when she was growing up in Moncton.
She agrees there has been a surge in interest over the past few years, especially during and after the pandemic.
"It's really cool to see all of the excitement around mushrooms," she said. "I go out now and people no longer look at me like I have three heads. They're like, 'Are you after chanterelles?' It's cool to see more awareness around it.'"
Jessika Gauvin said foraging for mushrooms is becoming more popular in New Brunswick.
Jessika Gauvin, president of the MycoNB Society, says foraging for mushrooms is catching on in New Brunswick and 'it's cool to see more awareness around it.' (Submitted by Jessika Gauvin)
Gauvin also runs a company, Enchanted Mushroom Forest, which offers guided foraging tours or coaching.
She said New Brunswick has a rich diversity of mushroom species, and it does take some dedication to learn to tell them apart.
"We have hundreds of mushroom species here," said Gauvin.
"Our really popular mushrooms have got to be the chanterelles, the hedgehog mushrooms, lobster mushrooms. Those are probably the most common ones here but we have meadow mushrooms, horse mushrooms — those are the ones related to the ones you get at the store."
Mycoblitz project
Justo said there is also a very active citizen scientist community in the province, who often help gather mushrooms for further study.
A large matsutake mushroom found last year by Jessika Gauvin, who said they smell like cinnamon.
A large matsutake mushroom found last year by Gauvin, who says they smell like cinnamon. (Submitted by Jessika Gauvin)
He and other researchers, including some of the citizen scientists, are taking part in the Maritimes for Mycoblitz, a North American research project spanning Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and New Brunswick for the first time this summer.
Together, they hope to assemble 1,000 collections of mushrooms.
"That seems like a lot, but it's actually just a small grain of sand in the study of biodiversity," Justo said. "But it's a good number."
N.B. scientists name new mushroom species
A good year for foraging has also meant a good year for scientific study.
Justo and his colleagues recently published a paper naming a new species of hedgehog mushroom, which was found and identified as part of a project in 2021 to study chanterelles and hedgehog mushrooms in New Brunswick.
Examples of the newly described species of hedgehog mushroom, Hydnum atlanticum.
Justo says hydnum atlanticum mushrooms are very similar in appearance to other hedgehog mushrooms — small-to-medium sized with brown and orange colours on the cap. (Submitted by Alfredo Justo)
"One of the finds was this species," he said. "We have over 30 collections of it. When we got the DNA sequencing back, it was a species that was not formally described."
He described the mushroom, which they dubbed hydnum atlanticum, as very similar in appearance to other hedgehog mushrooms — small-to-medium sized with brown and orange colours on the cap.
Is the new species rare?
The next step after naming the mushroom species is for scientists to study how rare or common it is, and where it can be found. So far, according to Justo, it has been found in New Brunswick, Labrador and parts of New York.
According to Justo, the next step after naming the mushroom species is for scientists to study how rare or common it is, and where it can be found.
According to Justo, the next step after naming the mushroom species is for scientists to study how rare or common it is, and where it can be found. (Submitted by Alfredo Justo)
He said the classification means the data is available to researchers throughout North America.
"Now they have the morphological data available, they have the DNA data available to them," he said.
Justo said researchers can compare their hedgehog mushroom finds to this one, to see if it's widespread or if it's going to be a rare species.
"We'll have to find out in the coming years."
No comments:
Post a Comment