The ancient Greeks and Romans were experts in wine fermentation but they had no modern tools to understand and imply that fungi were largely responsible for these transformations.
Sample #5: "The Old Man"
The cap of what came to be called "The Old Man" was filled with holes and spots. It looked like it had been around for a long time.
We found another Old Man up near the road in a drainage ditch close to a group of pine trees- so much excitement and color taking place on its depressed cap.
The purple-blue gills ran down the stalk in a decurrent fashion.
The stalk was centrally positioned. And the color of the gills blackened towards the edges. We wondered if blue dye might be extracted from a willing Old Man.
Trying to ID the Old Man led us to seek mycorrhizal associations of various species with trees nearby. The main tree in the vicinity was the pine tree.
Interesting fact about mycorrhizal associations on fungal diversity: Few trees in the Costa Rican forest are able to form ectomycorrhizae while in Canadian forests, all the trees form ectomycorrhizae. Thus the Canadian forests boast a great variety of large mushrooms while the tropical forests in Costa Rica support a lessor variety of mostly small mushrooms.
Identification
Option 1: Lactarius indigo
Lactarius indigo range from adnate to slightly decurrent, and crowded close together. Their color is indigo blue that becomes paler with age or staining green with damage. They are often found in floodplain areas (that is where we found one of our Old Men) and around pine trees. Most are foraged in late August.
Max feels strongly that our Old Man is an indigo milk cap mushroom; he notes the decurrent gills. But I think that it looks so much browner on the cap that it would have to be a very, very Old, Old man (maybe from August) if this were true. Not to mention that all the Lactarius indigo seem to have indigo and white caps.
But no better options have entered the picture....
Indigo milkies (Mycologista)
The Bluest of Fungi (Forager Chef)
Indigo milkcap (Shakerag Susan)
Indigo milkcap for food (Prairie Infusions)
"Mycorrhizae and the American Chestnut: An Underground Tale of Mystery" by Jonathan Palmer (American Chestnut Foundation)
