I finally found it
Today is Day of the Mushroom.
In celebration we are switching gears a little to talk about and celebrate something that quietly is at the foundation of our business but doesn’t get a lot of lime light.
Some of you may notice on our packaging a portion of profits going to the Hawaii Fungi Project, which is a community science effort to conserve the native mushrooms of Hawai’i.
Today we’re going to talk a little bit about why.
Of the nearly 2,000 mushrooms that occur in the Hawaiian islands, there are an estimated roughly 200 that are considered likely native and majority of them endemic, meaning native and exclusively found here. Only around around 50-60 of those species have been described & have names.
A few of the endemic species that actually have been described were evaluated by the IUCN and listed on the Red List of Threatened Species, though many more likely belong on this list but simply lack resources to fully describe and assess them.
It is fitting it is earth month & the official Day of the Mushroom as I finally got to lay eyes on one of these awe-inspiring endangered mushrooms for the first time last week after the Kona-low storms absolutely drenched the islands.
The mushroom is Hygrocybe noelokelani and I have been looking for this endangered species pretty much as long as I have been looking for mushrooms.
Hygrocybe is a genus of mushroom often referred to as “wax caps”. It’s taxonomic name comes from the Greek word for “moist” (hygros) and “head” (kybe) as species in this genus often have viscid caps.
It is an open question as to how they make a living. They aren’t saprotrophs (decomposers) or ectomycorrhizal in the sense of interlocking their mycelium in with tree roots and living symbiotically. They are instead dubbed ‘biotrophs’ as it is acknowledged they live in some sort of mutualistic association with plants, though the mysterious specifics are still being sussed out by scientist.
While the specifics of how to survive remains mostly unknown, they are probably most remembered for their beautiful colors, typically bright colors of red, orange and yellow. Or in the case of the Hawaiian H. noelokelani, pink.
The species name translates to “the pink rose in the mist” which is quite apt as I saw this ‘pink rose’ emerging amongst the wet, dank Hapu’u forest floor as the mist crept in and soaked everything it engulfed, including my camera as it struggled to get clear pictures without fogging up.
Here are a couple shots I was able to capture along with the 2 photos above:
Other things to mention
Recent mycological efforts have uncovered many of the unknown & unnamed species, with a huge effort organized by our friends at the Biodiversity Collective on Kaua’i uncovering 40 mushrooms never reported to the Hawaiian islands.
But it isn’t just new reports.