The Life of a Suburban Forager: The Oyster Mushroom Spot

oyster

This tree meant a lot to me over the years.  Growing up it was the highest tree that we could climb.  I climbed so high up and remember the wobbly feeling as gravity felt that it had less of a hold on me.  The view was beautiful, peaceful, serene and meditative.  One year, they cut the limbs off so people couldn’t climb it.  I suspect that these big arm wounds on the tree is how it got inoculated with oyster mushrooms in the first place, that’s how it happens.  It’s almost as if a tree gets a mushroom infection by exposed skin, just the same as what happens to a human who gets an infected cut.

I’ve had some great hauls from this beautiful tree.  It’s provided me and many friends with lots of delicious and medicinal mushrooms.  Did you know that this commonly sold mushroom grows in your back yard and is also being shown to have medicinal effect on the body!

Pleurotus ostreatus [oyster mushroom] extracts may inhibit cholesterol biosynthesis, as well as having potential anticancer and immunomodulatory activities” *.  And since mushrooms consume hydrogen and carbon they can break down lethal hydrocarbons (environmental pollutants) into harmless substances, as has been shown with Paul Stamets work, and with the mycoremediation project.

I hope that one day we can see the ecosystem as something that shares with it an incredible amount of sustainable resources if met with the right awareness and attitude.

Further Resources:

Mycoremediation Wiki

Paul Stamets – Solutions from the Underground

Paul Stamets – Ted Talk

Paul Stamets Statement on Mycoremediation and its application to Oil Spills

 

 

Works Cited: 

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicinal_mushrooms

^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-stamets/oyster-mushroom_b_2522084.html

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About Dan

Dan De Lion is an earth herbalist, forager, musician, and teacher. He teaches through Return to Nature, providing classes, lectures, and seminars on wild food foraging, mushroom identification, herbal medicine making, as well as primitive and survival skills with a focus on wild foods and forest medicines. He also incorporates the philosophies of yoga, alchemy, meditation, and mysticism into his classes, lectures, and seminars and brings a deep rooted indigenous medicine perspective of practicing intuition with plants, in a systematic and earth-based way – Check out more at www.returntonature.us.
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1 Response to The Life of a Suburban Forager: The Oyster Mushroom Spot

  1. Jazz says:

    wow wat a beautiful cool lil story of ur tree 🙂 thanks for sharing peace

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