Events Recap

Lake Maria Foray: May 21st, 2005

There were 20 brave souls who drove through an intense thunderstorm to attend the Lake Maria State Park foray. The lure of morels often causes morel maniacs to endure considerable hardship to stalk their prey. At 10 am the rain was still pouring down, but that did not deter us from heading out into the woods. Luckily most of us had some sort of rain gear. The few among us who had rubber boots were indeed fortunate, since our foray leader, Lee Moellerman, guided us through swamps and even a swiftly flowing stream. I was wearing my old sneakers, and it was actually pretty warm, so I hardly noticed that my feet were soaked. Lee assured us that there was no other way to reach a special area that hardly anyone knew about and that in previous years yielded the most morels in the Lake Maria park.

Some of our crew who assembled at Lake Maria

By the time we got there, it had stopped raining and it was fairly pleasant. We combed the area thoroughly, but this year the harvest was disappointing. I guess it was the erratic weather we had this spring that confused the morels. Nevertheless, everyone found a few. There were a few newcomers among us, who had never found a morel before, so they were thrilled with their handful of little grey morels.

We were pleased to have Leon Shernoff, noted authority on Strange Mushrooms, join us on the foray. We did find a few strange mushrooms (remember, we are interested in more than morels), which Leon enlightened us about. One was a large, brilliantly colored Scarlet Cup, Sarcoscypha coccinea, almost 2 inches across. Leon also pointed out an inconspicuous patch of tiny fungi on a branch, which were revealed as pretty little cup fungi under a hand lens.

Will and Lee take a picnic break with Leon Shernoff (in the middle).

After a few hours the intrepid foragers found their back to base camp and compared the contents of their baskets and mesh bags.

Submitted by Ron Spinosa

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