Here you will find the very last mushrooms of this season

Mushrooms live a hidden existence most of the time. Forest ranger Mikal: “They live almost all year underground where they create enormous networks, some of which are many tens of square kilometers in size. These networks are connected to the roots of trees and exchange nutrients, but also information. Then a mushroom like this one pops out of the ground.” Mikal points to the bright red mushrooms, which stand out brightly against the brown forest floor. “Fire mushrooms.”

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“Mushrooms often live off the sugars that trees and plants make,” Mikal explains. “Sometimes they supply nutrients to the tree in return. They live together in symbiosis. You also have mushrooms that break down dead wood and make the building materials available again. These are the saprotrophs. And then there are the parasites that live on and of living trees and which therefore slowly die.”

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The Robbenoordbos has many special mushrooms. “Here you have clay, sand and sometimes a thick layer of humus and dead trees. And of course moisture, which is what mushrooms like. In some plots the water level has been raised. As a result, trees on which mushrooms like to grow are dying. The soil is empty. are at least nice and moist, because fungi do well there.”

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A special mushroom we encounter is the collared earthstar. “It looks like an alien creature. The mushroom rises like a ball on a collar, like an apple on a saucer. The saucer/collar curls over and at a certain point comes loose from the ground. It is a drift fungus. When a drop of water falls on the ball, a cloud of spores bursts into the air and the mushroom spreads itself. It is really a special thing.”

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Winter is really coming to an end now, so we at Natural North Holland are ready with mushrooms for this season. But it was again a treat to see fungi in so many crazy shapes and colors.