Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 81 to Paris, every year. So into the burn we go, (hi ho hi ho...) but only after hour upon hour spent sifting through fire reports, watching weather patterns, and plenty of "ground truthing," or scouting, lots of hours scooting my little car over sketchy mountain roads, and a time or two digging out of late season snowbanks. The thawing snow feeds an entire ecosystem as it melts, and the ecology of snowmelt mushrooms has been cataloged and described by mycolo- gists for a century. Whether the surrounding forest is green or burned determines which sorts of fungi will thrive in the brief moist season. About a quarter of all the Ascomycetes, or cup fungi species, fruit exclusively after a burn event. Dozens of these species make tiny orange cup-shaped fruiting bodies, and these are collectively dismissed as "orange mold" by the casual observer. But taken together, the col- lection of mushroom species that arise from the ashes of a forest fire do so in a regular sequence, so much so that I can judge the age of a burn zone pretty accurately by what species of mushrooms have appeared. The spring following a burn, morels and orange mold share the burn with fire-following fairy cups (Geopyxis carbonaria gp) a carbon-loving Psathyrella, and a handful of mushrooms that appear nowhere else. After a year, when the fireweed has sprouted, Pholiota highlanden- sis tells me it is too late to look here for morels. Another year or so, and Rhizina sp. may form dark undulating fruits over the burnt soil. Inocybe sp. poke up their pointy heads where the new lodgepole seedlings are taking hold. And so it goes, more and different mushrooms appearing as the succession continues, until after 80 years or so you can find chanterelles there once again... What is a mushroom, anyway? Morels and other mush- rooms are the reproductive structures of certain types of fungi. Fungi are a life form separate from plants and animals that exist as a collection of thread-like hyphae, or mycelia. These mycelia pack forest soils with miles of microscopic fibers in every handful, and they seasonal- ly migrate up and down in soils, following moisture from the soil surface to many meters below the surface. Not all fungi produce mushrooms, indeed most do not produce reproductive structures big enough to attract our human notice. Yet these microscopic fungal fibers shape the nature of soils and are a prima- ry source of amino acids in every known ecosystem. Fungal hyphae push through the soil or woody substrate, secreting enzymes from their growing tip that digest the organic matter outside the hyphae and then sucking these nutrients in through their cell walls to feed. I SUPPOSE YOU COULD CALL ME OBSESSED, BUT THAT MAKES IT SOUND LIKE A PROBLEM. THE PROBLEM IS THAT MOREL SEASON ONLY LASTS A FEW WEEKS EVERY YEAR. THAT'S THE PROBLEM.

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