Mushroom and nature lover Joost Verburg from Zuidwolde can’t stop talking about it: the great wealth that the cemetery in Zuidwolde has when it comes to special fungi, among other things.
“Be careful, we always walk very carefully here,” Verburg laughs as he walks through the cemetery. The oldest graves date from 1850. “You don’t have to look far here. In the oldest part they are relatively close together. So you see yellow club mushrooms here. And further down there also the white club fungus.” You have to look carefully: the fungi are only a few centimeters in size and are hidden among the moss and in the grass.
The Zuidwolde Nature Association has discovered hundreds of species of mushrooms in recent years. “Look!”, Verburg shouts cheerfully, “here is the black sooty fungus. And this is the ear spoon fungus. Want to bet it grows on a pine cone?” Verburg digs away some soil and indeed: a pine cone appears.
The cemetery in Zuidwolde turns out to be a true mushroom paradise. Because the grass requires little maintenance – it is mowed once a year – and the fallen leaves are removed once in the autumn, there are few nutrients in the soil. An ideal environment for rare species.
“I always walk along the side here,” Verburg explains, as he walks around another part of the cemetery. “Because here among the moss there can be special species. Such as coral fungi. And here you have tongues.”
“If I really want to see it well, I put my head on the ground,” says the nature lover, as he sits on his knees on the ground and lays his head on the moss. “Then I fish them out. Look, they are really small tongues that come out of the bottom.”
Particularly special are the wax plates – a type of fungus – which owe their name to the shiny cap. These are picky mushrooms that only do well when conditions are optimal. “And these are two green mushrooms, parrot mushrooms,” Verburg points out when he comes across two shiny mushrooms. “Because parrots can also have such a green color.”
Verburg walks further and then finds all kinds of special wax plates. “They are actually the orchids among the mushrooms. Here we have the blackening wax plate. It is beautiful in color at first, but then turns black. And here we see all kinds of fire fungi. A fairly common species, but perhaps the most beautiful wax plate because of the bright to colour.”
The rarest mushroom species is, almost unnoticed, a little further away. “This is the gray wax plate. It has very large wax plates. That’s where the traces are, as you can see. We had already found eight or nine wax plates three years ago and then we discovered this gray wax plate. It has only been used once before. found in Drenthe. And then we also found the scented wax plate. Yes, all kinds of rare species were added. Then you actually realize what a natural wealth this is,” Verburg beams.
The Zuidwolde Nature Association published a book in honor of the association’s fiftieth anniversary. Not just about the special mushrooms, but about the entire cemetery. Marga Kool wrote poems about it.
“That was a lot of fun to do,” says Verburg. “We hope that people will accept the value of the cemetery and go along with the idea of continuing to manage it in an impoverished way. 4,800 copies of the book have been distributed.”