Magical Mycology

Chers Amis,

Caddie has gone mushroom crazy! I should preface this for those of you who don't know her, by saying that Caddie is a true naturalist and amateur biologist. Her favorite series of books is the National Auduban Field guides: Insects and Spiders, Amphibians and Reptiles and, of course, North American Mushrooms. Their bindings are broken and torn and the pages have been frayed with love. Warning - if she asks to read you a book, decline unless you have at least an hour for she will take you page by page, plate by plate through her current read. I do not exaggerate. When the humid summer heat and recent rains produced the seasons first major mushroom outbreak on our property, Caddie was enraptured. My garage has become a sorting and staging center and every free moment revolves around fungi hunting,identification, measurement, illustration, or research. In 10 minutes last nite she found a breathtaking - and life taking - Destroying Angel (Amanita bisporigera) by our shed, several giant bitter boletes pushing through the pine straw and ferns in our dry creek bed and a cluster of lemon yellow lepiota parasols opening in my rosemary. As my father used to say, "There's a fungus amongus." Or ten, or twenty . . Colored pencil boletes and russulas, stinkhorns and polypores are sprouting through the pages of her nature notebook and it is contagious. If you are interested in things mycological try Katya's Book of Mushrooms by Katya Arnold.

Even now as I sit here at the computer she has come in telling me of another bolete find in the woods that I must come see. So I do, Kodak Easy Share in hand. Some mothers and daughters share hobbies like sewing or scrapbooking. Caddie and I share mushrooms. They are beautiful and delicate and, like flowers and childhood, they bloom and fade and are gone. I don't want to miss a single stalk or second.
--Marjorie