Letters to the editor can be sent to
Wilderness Way, Editor Christopher Nyerges,
Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041 or
www.Christopher Nyerges.com

updated 11/2009

What’s In Your Pack

Hello Christopher,

Peace be with you!

Re: “What’s in Your Pack” (Volume 15, Issue 1):

I’m in the CAP Emergency Services in the Cascades. We’re always interested in finding new/smaller/more efficient equipment to supplement our survival vests while on SAR (actually, LOCATION) missions. One item I didn’t see mentioned in Anthony’s list was CASH! Another: camera.

Personally, I’m currently into two tyvek ground cloths sewed/taped together to create a bag that I can either climb into if the weather is rotten, or I can stuff with soft vegetation for insulation under me. I found a tyvek frog suit over my nylon field clothes kept me from over-vaporizing at night. I’m going to add tyvek socks over my wool next time, too.

I think you mentioned acorn flour once, purchased from a Korean grocery store. I’m still looking for that one.

Thanks so much

–R.N. Hoffwild

(via e-mail)

Hello Christopher:

Re: What’s in your Pack

Where did Anthony Hardwick get his Kifaru pack he described? I looked on-line and could not find it.

Editor: Here is Anthony’s reponse: “I bought mine directly from the company: www. kifaru.net. My pack is the X-Ray in Coyote Brown.”

Christopher:

I went to the desert and survived for three days on about $10. My diet included cactus fruit, young nopales, mesquite beans, and herbs. I picked up a book called Edible Wild. In this book, I also learned that I could eat wood sorrel, which covers my backyard.

— Michael Jacob Rochlin

Los Angeles

Everyone’s Not On-Line

Dear Editor:

I thoroughly enjoy your magazine. However, I would suggest that you encourage your advertisers to include a mailing address or a phone number with their ads. Please note the ones I circled. Some of us dummies still can’t spell compooter, let alone run one. Some people can’t find work; I can’t find enough hours in the day. It would be much easier for me to call or write. Thank you. Keep up the good work.

— Ollie

Editor’s response: Ollie circled two adds in our classified section —one titled FIRE and the other titled 10,000 PRODUCTS—  neither of which have a listed address or phone number. Ollie, we print what people pay us to print, and possibly they want to operate strictly on-line. Still, we hope other advertisers take note of your concerns. You’re not the first to point this out.

Mushroom Identity

Dear Mr. Nyerges:

In your article “The Mushroom Kingdom” (Volume 8, Issue 1), there is a misidentified mushroom on page 9. The mushrooms that are identified as Armillarea mellea (“oak rot mushrooms”) are most certainly not A. mellea. The creamy white color is wrong, the umbrella shape and large umbo are wrong, the thin margins on the cap are wrong, and there is no speckling of the cap. In fact, these bear no resemblance whatever to A. mellea.

I have picked and eaten A. mellea all my life from woods in Pennsylvania, and I’m now 73 years old! A related subspecies, slightly lighter in color but otherwise identical, also grows here and I’ve verified its identification with professional mycologist, the late Dr. Harry Thiers, formerly of San Francisco University.

— Joseph G. Piroch, M.D. FCCP

Foxburg, PA

Nyerges’ response: I responded in writing to Joseph Piroch, pointing out that the photo was taken in 1974, and was identified at that time by members of the L.A. Mycological Association as A. mellea, and we had eaten it many times from the same stumps. I noted that it was an old specimen in the photo, and that I had noted much variation in this species, including specs on the cap. I did note that the color of what I was calling A. mellea was different from the color in either Orson Millers’, Mushrooms of North America or Alexander Smith’s, A Field Guide to Western Mushrooms. This led to me to believe that the western A. mellea might be a different species or a distinct western variety.

Mr. Piroch responded as follows:

Dear Mr. Nyerges:

In reply to your letter, Orson Miller’s excellent book, Mushrooms of North America, has a fine photograph (#102) of A. mellea. The photograph is identical in every respect to the A. mellea we pick here. As you know, it is also popularly known as the “oak rot” mushroom, and as “the honey mushroom” or “honey armillaria” (its species name “mellea” comes from Latin “mel” meaning honey).
 

At a mushroom conference I attended in Aspen, Colorado a number of years ago sponsored by the late Dr. Alexander Smith, the late Dr. Thiers, and another discussant whose name I’ve forgotten, one person in the audience who lived in the western state commented upon what he thought was a very poor flavor of A. mellea (or what he thought was A. mellea). I responded by saying that A. mellea is a prized a choice edible in the east. One can only speculate about what it was that he had picked and eaten.
 

I could not venture a guess as to the mushroom you’ve identified in your Wilderness Way photo as A. mellea without having a specimen in hand for study and identification. I suggest taking a sample to a professional university mycologist for identification rather than to a fellow hobbyist. I’d be interested in the outcome.

—Joseph G. Piroch, M.D. FCCP

Foxburg, PA

Mr. Piroch, I will be sure to let you know any results of further study, once our mushroom season begins. I have eaten this same species, which was identified to me as A. mellea, for about 35 years now. I have seen it on the same tree trunks, and can recognize this one as a young mushroom, as a mature cluster, and even when it is largely decomposed. It is indeed an edible species, and I am eager to determine whether or not it is the same A. mellea that you eat. I’ll keep you posted.

—    Christopher