M.K. Dorje Sr.

Hugo, thank you for starting this thread, I really appreciate it! And thank you to everyone else who is contributing, too.

I have been experimenting with assisted forest migration for many years. I have observed that the Douglas-firs that have been planted in the western third of Oregon as a monoculture crop are really starting to struggle with the climate crisis, including a massive die off that started several years ago in southwestern Oregon.

I have also observed that madrones, California black oaks and Oregon white oaks are drought tolerant and able to withstand the long droughts and vicious heat waves of the past decade.  They also resprout following forest fires. So I have been collecting seeds from these trees for many years from southernmost Oregon and planting them further north up in the central Coast Range and Calapooya Mountains. I plant some of the seeds directly in the soil, especially in burned areas during the spring morel season. The morels are placed in the same bag as the seeds, so their spores naturally inoculate the oak and madrone seeds before I plant them. I also plant madrone seeds and acorns in trays and transplant them in the following  winter or sell them as part of my permaculture mini nursery.

Just in case anyone is interested, I have a bunch of Oregon white oak seedlings for sale, as well as other seedling trees such as Silverleaf Chestnuts, Howard English walnuts, Yamhill filberts and Indian Freestone peaches. (Seedlings are more drought tolerant than grafted trees.) I can also deliver or you can pick them up here at Permaculture Nursery. Just purple mooseage me for more info.

Some questions:

1. Are these grafted trees dwarf Meyer lemons? Or are they one of the the standard sized varieties grown in Florida and other sub-tropical places?
2. Have your trees gotten any flowers yet? If so, did you hand pollinate them or see any pollinators?

I've been growing dwarf Meyer lemons for about 20 years now in my unheated greenhouse. I usually hand pollinate the flowers with a small water color paint brush to maximize fruit set.  It probably took about about three years before they flowered and fruited their first crop.

I've also noticed Meyer lemons can be sensitive to sudden drops in temperature and can fail to mature a crop if they are suddenly put outside in a cold spot after flowering.

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Interesting how they smell like cucumbers or watermelons... I'm wondering what they taste like now. Like you said, sounds like you definitely need to harvest this one early before it gets tough...

Some questions Dian:

1.) How big IS it?  

2.) Does it smell like watermelon rind?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerioporus_squamosus

Wikipedia says that pioneer botanist Sir William Hooker once found one that had a circumference of 7 feet 7 inches!!  :0

Yes, it's Meripilus sumstinei. I trimmed off the tender edges for stir fry and my fingers stained black in minutes. Tasted like oyster mushroom but tougher. The base was too woody to handle and I saved most of mushrooms for stock.

May, I'm glad to hear that you have successfully identified that one.  I'm adding Meripilus to my "look for" list this fall!  I'm wondering now if I've walked right by it in the past...

Christopher Weeks wrote:

M.K. Dorje Sr. wrote:I see the Dyer's polypore all the time. As the common name suggests, it is used to dye fabrics.

Very cool! I bought my daughter a copy of this book on using mushroom pigments for her birthday last year so after you mentioned this, I passed it on, she looked it up, and we dismantled the whole thing. It's in the dehydrator now and we're going to dye a skein of undyed yarn with it and a tin mordant and she'll make the rest into watercolor which is her real interest.

That's awesome Christopher, glad you two could find a good use for that one! Please let us know how it goes, cause I'm also interested in using mushrooms to dye fabrics.

Christopher Weeks wrote:It’s hard to get a picture that captures all the weirdness. It’s growing in my garlic bed, and has encompassed a couple of the garlics and a bunch of weeds. I have no idea what it is beyond pretty cool and kind of hard-surfaced.

That one looks a lot like the Dyer's Polypore (Phaeolus schweinitzii), a common parasite on Douglas-fir in the Northwest. See what you think:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaeolus_schweinitzii

Mushroomexpert:

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/phaeolus_schweinitzii.html

I see the Dyer's polypore all the time. As the common name suggests, it is used to dye fabrics.

May Lotito wrote:We received 2" of rain two days ago and today I stumbled into these giant clusters of mushrooms near an old oak stump. Black-staining polypore?

May, I'm not familiar with the black-staining polypore (Meripilus sumstinei), but here is an excellent description from mushroomexpert.com to help with your identification:

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/meripilus_sumstinei.html

Here is the wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meripilus_sumstinei

Hope this helps!

Megan, those mushrooms definitely look like Agaricus- with gills that turn from pink to chocolate brown, but they are probably not Portobellos (Agaricus bisporus). Agaricus is an extremely complex genus, comprising over 200 species in North America. In the words of David Arora: "Agaricus species are perplexingly polymorphic." There are several characteristics to separate the different species, including staining reactions, odor and veil characteristics.  Some species are delicious and some are toxic. In my experience, I've found that portobellos (which are the same species as white button mushrooms) are not easy to grow from spores and are extremely rare in the wild. Here is a key to this perplexing group of mushrooms from Michael Kuo:

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/agaricus.html