Delaware Water Gap National Recreation AreaPage 18 of 31

A Technician’s Mushroom Hobby Became a Fungi Inventory for National Parks

An Indian pipe flower with an unusual red color and dozens of mushrooms of different shapes, colors and sizes on a wood floor

Some of the many mushrooms found in Eastern Rivers and Mountains Network parks. At lower right is an Indian pipe flower with unusual red coloring; these plants, also called ghost plants, are usually white or pale pink, lack chlorophyll and depend on certain fungi to survive (photo: NPS / Sarah Daugherty).

Most of the mushrooms in these parks had never been written down. A National Park Service (NPS) biological technician, Sarah Daugherty, began noticing them while collecting data for the Eastern Rivers and Mountains Network’s forest health monitoring program. Their striking colors, odd shapes and foul smells were hard to miss for a fan of fungi, so she took photos and jotted notes. When she checked NPSpecies, the NPS species database, most of what she saw had not been recorded. Only Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area had a robust list, and surveys of fungi in the other network parks were few and far between, if they existed at all.

From hobby to inventory

Colleagues agreed she should turn her observations into a formal inventory. Fungi matter for ecosystems: they help with decomposition and nutrient cycling, feed trees and other plants (some plants, like ghost plants and pink lady’s slippers, cannot survive without fungal partners), help stabilize and aerate soil underground, help create habitat in standing and downed trees, and provide meals for wildlife. During the summers of 2017 and 2018 she recorded interesting fungi during her regular fieldwork. She took photos as vouchers, identified many on the spot, took extra photos and detailed notes for others and now and then collected specimens for spore prints.

What turned up

39 species in Gauley River National Recreation Area, where NPSpecies had no records at all.
53 species in New River Gorge National River, more than doubling the number of fungi species known from the park.

These results are to be verified and added to NPSpecies, where they can help visitors identify their own finds and give scientists a baseline for future surveys. The inventory is still only a partial picture, since it does not show what fungi appear at other times of year or in other habitats.

Some of the finds

Bright purple coral fungus rising from leaf litter

The violet coral, Clavaria zollingeri, looks as if it belongs at the bottom of the ocean, and its purple branches make it easy to spot (photo: NPS / Sarah Daugherty).

A mushroom with an intricate white net hanging from an olive cap

The netted stinkhorn, Dictyophora duplicata, has a stark white net around its fruiting body, but once mature it smells foul, which draws flies to spread its spores (photo: NPS / Sarah Daugherty).

A pale blue mushroom growing in leaf litter

Lactarius indigo has a pale blue cap, and when cut its indigo gills bleed milky latex that slowly turns from brilliant blue to deep green as it oxidizes (photo: NPS / Sarah Daugherty).

A wrinkled bright pink mushroom with drops of orange liquid on its stem

The wrinkled peach, Rhodotus palmatus, grows on decaying wood; young caps are soft to flamingo pink with deep net patterns that fade with age. This one is “weeping,” secreting moisture through its pores in a process called guttation (photo: NPS / Sarah Daugherty).

A small orange-yellow mushroom with a tiny horn at the tip of its cap

The yellow unicorn mushroom, Entoloma murrayi, is named for the small point on its cap that resembles a horn and can be seen in the height of summer (photo: NPS / Sarah Daugherty).

Helping, and the rules

Hikers can help by sharing photos and locations of fungi on apps like iNaturalist, whose community identifies and verifies the sightings. Collecting or disturbing mushrooms is prohibited on many NPS lands, although some parks allow small amounts of edible mushrooms for personal use, capped per person per day. Many mushrooms are poisonous and should not be eaten unless you can correctly identify the species and know it is edible. Collecting for research or education may be allowed but requires a permit.

Sources

National Park Service, Eastern Rivers and Mountains Network, “So Many Mushrooms!” (https://www.nps.gov/articles/so-many-mushrooms.htm), a summary by Jessica Weinberg McClosky of S. Daugherty and S. Perles, “Opportunistic inventory of fungi in Eastern Rivers and Mountains Network parks,” Natural Resource Report NPS/ERMN/NRR—2019/2021 (2019); rewritten in hubnx’s own words. The scientific name of the netted stinkhorn is corrected from the source’s spelling “duplicate.”