When you think of rare mushrooms, you probably don’t immediately think of spring and highway verges near the A8. But it is precisely those roadsides that are currently full of veined shank mushrooms, nuns’ hoods and thimbles. To prevent everyone from turning out en masse and wandering along the highway themselves, NH has listed the special fungi here.
Early this morning reporter Samanta de Groot of NH Radio stood along the A8, together with mushroom expert Piet Brouwer. Piet: “Most mushrooms grow in late summer and autumn. But mushrooms can also grow in the spring.” Spring mushrooms such as the Veined crest fungi, Nunskaps and Thimbles can currently be found in abundance along the A8, at the entrance to Oostzaan.
Rare finds
Piet says: “Look, here we have the veined bone fungus, and that rare fungus only grows in two or three places in the Netherlands. That has to do with the specific soil type.” Piet explains that in the ground along the A8 there are fossil shells that are between 11 thousand and 2.5 million years old. Every time it rains, those shells give off a little lime, which then spreads through the sand. “But”, continues Piet, “that’s not all. In addition to the fact that the fungi crave that type of soil, there are also Canadian poplars here. And those fungi correspond to those poplars via an underground network of hyphae. In other words: the fungi and poplars live in symbiosis here.”
Piet knows an incredible amount about mushrooms, but actually started as an orchid connoisseur. “As an orchid connoisseur, I came across all kinds of fields, where I also encountered mushrooms. The similarity between orchids and mushrooms is that they come in all sorts of shapes and colours. You have mushrooms that look like a coral reef, like a mushroom – so they have a hat and stem – or like a squid.”
Species hunters
In the past, motorway verges were hardly ever looked at for research, but now that it is known that rare species can be found along the A8, many more ‘species hunters’ are active, according to Piet. They then drive up to check off a species on their list. However innocent that may seem, it is certainly not the intention that everyone will walk along the A8. Piet: “I help Rijkswaterstaat with my counts, which is why I can walk here with a red vest. People in the car have already called 112 a few times because they thought there was a body on the roadside. But that was me, lying on my stomach to do research!”
Rijkswaterstaat adjusts its mowing management to Piet’s findings and counts. “Orchids and spring mushrooms require poor soil. So mowing is done in September and the clippings are removed. If the clippings remain, it enriches the soil and those species can no longer grow here.” Future research will have to show whether there are also many Nunskaps, Veined Kluifzwammen and Thimbles at other locations in the Netherlands, just like the A8.