Fungi fascination leads to foray

A FASCINATION for fungi has a Wairarapa woman welcoming 50 experts to the region from tomorrow for the annual foray.
The 21st Fungal Foray will bring a group of scientists to the forest floors of the Tararua Forest Park and other reserves for a week of searching for different varieties of the organism ? and it is quite likely they will find some that haven't yet been named.
It is the first time the Landcare Research event will be held in Wairarapa, and one woman who waits in anticipation for it is Carterton's Di Batchelor, a Department of Conservation contractor.
Ms Batchelor, who has had assisted with some of the organisation of the event, is based at Mount Holdsworth where she has a collection of some 200 fungi and said the expert help in identifying them is going to be "fantastic".
She has just completed a graduate diploma in conservation science at Victoria University and is about to enrol for her thesis.
Her interest in the fungal family is simple ? while monitoring kiwi in Ohakune she noticed a lot of mushrooms about and she wondered if she could eat them.
"I'd like to have a chapter in my masters about traditional methods of eating fungi, particularly in the Wairarapa," she said.
Ms Batchelor is especially interested in the historic aspect of Maori using fungi for food and the loss of that knowledge over the years because it was passed on orally with no written references made, she said.
"Pakeha New Zealanders, being largely of English descent, tend to have a fear of all fungi apart from field mushrooms," she said, "and that's part of our New Zealand culture."
Ms Batchelor has a love for fungi and the opportunities for discovery that are still available ? with an estimated 22,000 species in New Zealand, only a third of those have been formally described, she said.
"There's just so many different sorts," she said.
"You see one and while you're down there looking at it you see another one. You end up crawling all over the forest and it's just fascinating."
Auckland-based Landcare Research mycologist (fungal scientist) Peter Buchanan said though fungi hunting began in Wairarapa in the 1850s with William Colenso collecting in what used to be known as Forty Mile Bush, there is still little known about them in this region.
Fungi play an important role towards decomposition and nutrient uptake in forests and can also cause diseases, so it is important to fully understand the role of them for New Zealand's ecosystem, he said.
"They occur in the home, in the garden and in any place that we live ? they are a significant part of the native organisms in New Zealand," he said.
He said with so many varieties yet to be found, it is "quite likely" that the fungal scientists will uncover some new species on their travels around the forests of the Wairarapa. The Fungal Foray enthusiasts will identify and catalogue their findings for inclusion in a national web-based database.