For the naturalist...

I'm spending Sunday morning, February 23, doing research for an article on fungi. "We" in NW Florida have just experienced the Flood of 2008. With rain and rot comes fungi to help decompose plant and animal matter to nutrients and return the host to the soil. I just found the most amazing site. Here it is: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/.

It is easy to navigate. But please, unless you are absolutely educated on the gathering of mushrooms, do NOT ingest them. Cooking won't help you if you have eaten a poisonous mushroom.

Further down on the home page, I found Pamela's Mushrooms, another terrific site. Pay attention to the large icon she uses for poisonous mushrooms. She's not kidding, and neither am I. http://pkaminski.homestead.com/page1.html

That said, I'm going back to my article, which I'm writing for JPG Magazine.

My father often told me the story of the family he knew who gathered mushrooms on Staten Island, as they did at home in Italy. They gathered their last when some poisonous mushrooms got into their basket and killed the whole family. Don't know if they used Cousin Anthony's method below - no one was left to ask!

Here's a note from my paisan (or, as good as a relation) Anthony, from his childhood. His grandparents and mine were friends from the old country, and found their way to Staten Island together. One sponsored the other, I think. But anyway, here's what he remembers:

For the mushrooms, I remember my father and mother putting a silver coin in the frying pan with ''picked mushrooms'' from the woods on Staten Island. If the coin turned black it was poisoned and discarded. Our olden days were ''teachers''.

Incidentally, I got some good photos this morning, including an Anhinga in one of my favorite trees. I'm getting closer to the perfect shot of those rascals.

The creeks and canals are inundated. And so are some of the waterside yards. Whoever was responsible for releasing the water from the Deer Point dam was asleep. We almost lost the dam because of it. A new post with a slideshow will be posted sometime this week.