Not Enough Fungus Left Among US

A giant mushroom found in old-growth forests in some ways symbolizes the hopes and fears that rest upon fungi. Researchers are examining various species for medicinal purposes, while commercial uses may harbor more potential. ---------------------------

Like a figment from some nightmare fairy tale, a fully grown Oxyporus nobilissimus fungus is about 3 feet tall, 3 feet across, and hairy on top, like a rough-coated dog.

In maturity, at about age 25, the mammoth mushroom often weighs several hundred pounds. In fact, James Trappe, emeritus professor of botany at Oregon State University, says he heard of one big enough to fill the bed of a pickup truck.

But because this champion champignon likes to cozy up to old-growth conifer trees, its future is challenged by the chain saw.

Indeed, the rare monster mushroom - its name means "most noble polypore" - could soon join the northern spotted owl as an environmental indicator species.

Trappe and other mycologists, including University of Washington botany professor Joseph Ammirati, expect Oxyporus nobilissimus to become the first fungus designated rare and endangered.

There seems little doubt about its rarity. The first was spotted in Oregon in the early 1940s. But ever since, even though thousands of mushroom hunters comb old-growth forest in the Washington and Oregon Cascade Mountains every year, only about 10 more of the funnel-shaped giants have been reported.

And, because its habitat is around old-growth conifer trees or their stumps, scientists believe that nobilissimus may be disappearing along with the old-growth forests.

In the past, that might not have caused much concern. But the developing use of taxol, a product of a "junk tree" called the Pacific yew, in treating cancer has won new respect for the forest's humbler denizens.

"There are many things out there that we don't yet understand," Ammirati says. "We don't understand their value in the ecosystem, and we don't understand their value to human life."

With increasing recognition of this knowledge gap, fungi have come into scientific vogue in the past two or three years. "I think this whole subject is beginning to take off," Ammirati says.

Trappe shares that view. For example, he says, drug companies have begun screening wild fungi for beneficial chemical properties. The checklist of potential uses includes cancer drugs, antibiotics, herbicides and pesticides. Previously, says UW pharmacy professor Lynn Brady, most fungal research had only focused on what makes some mushrooms poisonous.

Mycologists now envisage a revolutionary change in which forests would be harvested for food and drugs as well as timber.

Some see potential for hundreds of millions of dollars of income from edible mushrooms alone. That seems hardly credible until you consider that morels retail for about $15 a pound, and dried matsutake mushrooms sell in Japan for $100 a pound.

Admittedly, Washington and Oregon each exported only about $30 million of wild mushrooms in 1990. But with pollution putting Europe's wild mushrooms into catastrophic decline, U.S. export prospects look increasingly rosy.

Says Mike Strange, special-forest-products coordinator in the Willamette National Forest, "Federal land managers are coming to grips with the fact that we have many items in the forest, from mushrooms to mosses, not just timber."

Ammirati and Trappe say the first step toward multicultural forestry is to unravel the mysteries of how a forest works. They've begun monitoring whether forest management practices are decreasing the number and kinds of fungi in Pacific Northwest forests.

As part of that investigation, Ammirati issued a call in the summer 1991 edition of the magazine Mushroom: The Journal of Wild Mushrooming, published in Moscow, Idaho, asking readers to report any new sightings of Oxyporus nobilissimus.

A quick response came from professional mushroomers Don and Bonnie Grandorff, who, while roaming remote Coast Range forest about 20 miles from their home in Lebanon, Ore., discovered three or four half-grown specimens.

The Grandorffs provided Ammirati with a slice that is being tested in a National Forest Service laboratory in Wisconsin to check for useful chemical properties.

Despite its gargantuan size, the largest documented Oxyporus nobilissimus in the Pacific Northwest was beaten in 1989 by a British specimen. Its 161-inch circumference won it the Guinness Book of Records title for world's largest tree fungus.

However, with the hunt for the elusive nobilissimus continuing in the Northwest's vast forests, Ammirati says with some confidence, "We hope to change that."