Mushroom Fever

Some of you in warmer climes are already out there, scouring the woods for the favorite fungi of spring. Morel fever is back, exacting its toll once again. No doubt legions of mushroom hunters are walking around right now at this very moment with stiff necks and eyeballs ready to pop out of their heads. But for the rest of us, we can only wait in anticipation for such symptoms.

Or settle back into the armchair for a vicarious thrill.

I've been traipsing through Larry Millman's new collection of fungal vignettes, Giant Polypores & Stoned Reindeer, to keep the fever at bay. It's the sort of off-season reading we all need on occasion: a reminder that somewhere, someone is enjoying our favorite pursuit, and soon—soon!—we will be that someone.

Millman brings a visceral appreciation and a traveler's erudition to the mushroom hunt. He forages among the headhunters of Borneo; takes a trip to northern Siberia in search of Santa's favorite shroom; and journeys to the opposite pole in his imagination, where the mushrooms of the mind take on epic proportions. One of his well known articles, "Notes on the Ingestion of Amanita muscaria," is included here, with the memorable line: "Larry is drinking a beer, and he says he can relate to the bottle, that the bottle can relate to him, and that the two of them are actually enjoying each other's company."

In "The Thrill of the Hunt," Millman diagnoses the fever as much larger than a quest for mere edibles, illustrating that it may not even require a walk in the woods. His beat-up Chevy Nova's back seat carries a variety of mold and rust passengers. A friend's brassiere is filled with inky caps. Should you find an owl pellet, he advises, "look at it closely: there might be an Onygena species growing on it." The essay concludes with a visit to a touristy spot in Death Valley, California, where, against the odds, he stumbles upon "a group of stalked puffballs lifting their heads proudly to the bright desert sky."

In other words, we are surrounded by the kingdom of fungi. Open your eyes—and your mind—and you might cure that fungal fever in the most unlikely of places. Millman's new book is an entertaining and informative panacea for all that ails us mushroom hunters.

For those of you in the Seattle area, Larry Millman will be speaking at the Puget Sound Mycological Society on May 13, 7:30 p.m.