On October 16, my wife and I came across a curious mushroom trail in the Robert Johnson Eco Park in Douro. We though you might be interested. We speculate that some little vole or other rodent passed by a mushroom full of spores, captured a mass of them on his fur and distributed them later as he wandered about under the leaf cover. Perhaps there’s another explanation. In any case the attached iPhone video and still shot give a pretty good idea of what we found. I was in the same woods again four days later – in the rain – and saw the trail mostly still there but now all brown and old. Click here for a video of the “mushroom trail”. img_1464
Alan Stewart, Lakefield
Further comments:
I actually think I saw the very same mushroom “trail” at the Eco Park this fall–not too far in and, if I remember correctly, just past the boardwalk or over in that direction somewhere. At that time (Sept? Oct?) there were quite a few other common mushrooms around as well. The “trail” is a good size as these things go. I took it to be a fairy ring. You can see the curvature in the line up as Alan wanders through his video.Hard to judge species as there are several whitish species that form fairy rings. These were a good size, certainly including caps in the 4″ range, but I didn’t bother to document it. Also hard to know diameter of the circle due to terrain and impossible to establish the original center of the ring due to successive tree harvests on that property.
All the mushrooms would be coming from the same parent mycelium.and the mycelium ring would have worked its way outward over many years as nutrients close in were exhausted. The fairy ring I know best at Mark S. Burnham Provincial Park reliably fruits every year, so maybe this one does too and we can pay more attention next year to see if it is truly exceptional (>10 meter diameter).
Jennie Versteeg
Fungi trail in Douro – October 16, 2016 – Alan Stewart
