November Nature Walk to Found Road Trail: Mushroom Madness

Fall is a great time to get outdoors and enjoy what nature has to offer on the trails of Pender Island. Please join us on Saturday, November 6 starting at 9:30 am at the trailhead of the Found Road Trail on Clam Bay Road to view the mushrooms that proliferate there at this time of year. No registration or RVSP's are required. Just show up dressed for the weather. 

 Mushrooms are mostly dormant during the dry summers but as the fall rains start, they produce fleshy reproductive fruiting bodies that pop up through the duff on the forest floor.  There are estimated to be about 3000 varieties of fungi found in British Columbia. However much of the time they exist only as the mycelium that proliferates underground. Mushrooms appear in certain seasons because it this is the time that the fungal mycelia have the inclination and the energy to reproduce sexually.

While we do not have an expert mycologist to lead the walk, there will be Conservancy members participating who have some knowledge of mushrooms and other fungi. We plan to use several methods to identify the mushrooms we find along the trail:  iNaturalist and its companion app called Seek compares a photo that a user takes with images stored in their database. Another technique we will use is described in a recently published book entitled Mushrooms of British Columbia by Andy MacKinnon and Kem Luther. We look forward to seeing you on the 6th!