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PAGE 14 SPOTLIGHTS IDAHO SENIOR INDEPENDENT • APRIL / MAY 2021
Fabulous Fungi
SPRING TREASURE AND AUTUMN GOLD
Club, started in 1968 in Coeur d’Alene by
Kit Scates-Barnheart. An avid mushroom
hunter, Scates-Barnheart started teaching
small classes using some of her 20,000
slides of fungi to educate folks.
According to Tim Gerlitz, the club’s
current educational outreach member,
Scates-Barnheart’s slides and her descrip-
tions were in all the published field guides.
Her extensive knowledge and enthusiasm for
fungi was the spark that got the club going.
After Scates-Barnheart’s passing, the
educational torch was passed to Gerlitz.
“I started traveling around the Inland
Northwest, giving talks on mushrooms
and encouraging interested people to get
educated and enjoy mushroom hunting,”
he explained. “Within a few years we had
150 members, and our workshops and pre-
sentations had anywhere between 20 to
several hundred people attending,” he said.
Bear’s head mushrooms are white and have pristine, white icicles-type spines hanging down. They grow “Interest just exploded.”
on dead wood and are most prolific in the fall. © randimal, Bigstock.com
Now, due to the pandemic, the club has
switched to Facebook Live workshops. Last
the earth, fruiting bodies of fungi begin to spring, 6,000 live listeners participated,
BY HOLLY ENDERSBY appear. When nighttime temperatures stay including some from other countries.
in the 50-degree range, wood walkers know The fall Facebook Live workshop
You don’t need a reason to walk in the to start looking for mushrooms. clocked in 3,000 listeners. Clearly, this
woods, but going on a treasure hunt sure One of the oldest and largest fungi clubs club knows how to handle outreach in
adds fun to the outing. In spring, as the snow in Idaho is the North Idaho Mushroom these challenging times!
melts, days grow longer, and the sun warms
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