Sam's Corner
Second Quarter of 2004
Topics
Yellow Jackets and Serbo Croatian Mushroom Books
A Very Strange Gall on Hydnochaete olivaceum
Yellow Jackets and Serbo Croatian Mushroom Books
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Those who read the January bulletin will remember my story about Igor Malchevski from the Snohomish mushroom group in Washington State. While we were picking Boletus bicolor he stepped on a yellow jackets’ nest. He was stung several times and had to spend 6 hours in the emergency ward despite getting an injection when he was stung .
Anyway, I gifted him with two books. 1) Anton Poler’s book on Slovenian mushrooms and 2) Romano Boac’s book, 600 Gljiva Naših Krajeva, (= 600 mushrooms in our region). He wrote a two-page review in the Snohomish County Bulletin.
I have another copy that Bo ac gave me when I visited Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia in 1985. It has excellent photographs, 55 drawings of spores, diagrams and much more. I hope someone will borrow my copy and review the book. The text is in Serbo-Croatian but the generic and species names are in English.
A Very Strange Gall on Hydnochaete olivaceum*
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Hydnochaete is a brown fungus that resembles a Hydnum that is only found on branches of red oak – and always on the underside of the twig! The generic name, "Hydno-", refers to the toothed hymenium and the "–chaete" refers to the setae on the "teeth" – which you can see with a hand lens.
Last year Sylvia sent me a specimen that had bumps on the teeth. An insect incites those bumps. The insects have not emerged in her specimen. Look for more specimens on dead twigs of red oak.
* See my photograph in the Audubon field guide. It belongs to the family Hymenochaetaceae. Also known as Irpex cinnamomeus. A drop of KOH will cause a black color on the teeth. Find some twigs.