Sudbury Valley TrusteesConservation, Collaboration, and Community since 1953

There are two advantages to walking in the woods at this time of year. First, most insects you run into are kinds you like to see, such as dragonflies and butterflies. Few of the ambience-spoilers, mosquitoes and deer flies, make it past Labor Day. Secondly, these are the weeks when mushrooms look their best.

I like to look at mushrooms, but I never bring them home. They aren’t easy to identify. A scientist who gathers them for his table told me that he once spared his family from profoundly upset stomachs by his last-minute decision to examine a particular mushroom through a microscope. I’m sure the woods offers some nice flavors, but my choice is to eat only mushrooms that have passed through a grocery store.

Out of doors, it’s their beautiful forms, colors, and textures that draw my eye. The way mushrooms push up through the soil, lifting bits of pine needles and rotten leaves on their caps, never fails to cheer me. Emerging into the light and air, they appear to expect a good reception, as a smiling child assumes she’s loved by those around her.

What we call mushrooms and toadstools are ephemeral reproductive structures, visible manifestations of long-lived underground organisms. Mycelia: that’s the biological term for the threads that form large, durable networks that gather nutrients from the soil. When conditions are right, mycelia give rise to the spore-producing shafts and heads that decorate the forest floor.

When I was in school, we were taught that mushrooms were a kind of plant. At that time, biology had just two kingdoms. In the intervening years, as sports leagues added expansion teams, taxonomists defined new kingdoms, and fungi rated a palace of their own.

Because they appear just above Earth’s surface, stem from a large invisible web, and intertwine with the community of life-forms around them, mushrooms are a reminder of the delicious offerings of nature that emanate from the land. I’m thinking of purple New England asters, chickadees, and our autumn-loving pumpkins. Touched down on a Massachusetts field or forest, tourists from another galaxy would describe our land as mostly leaves, accented by petals, feathers, and fur.

Land serves many different human purposes. Kids play games on it. We all work, shop, and live on land that’s under buildings. Our food is grown on it, and the air we breathe receives oxygen from plants rooted in it. “Land conservation” is a powerful way to take care of ALL the life that sustains and inspires us. Sudbury Valley Trustees and other land trusts aren’t protecting just dirt. Wet land or dry, farm or forest or the garden at your door, land is life.

I hope you’ll take time to enjoy the woods this month, and take pleasure in whatever you see there. And while you’re outdoors in nature, remember that conservation land is never, in Massachusetts, accidental. It results from a commitment by landowners, communities, and organizations to protect our balance of land uses; to save a place for mushrooms, asters, chickadees, and pumpkins—and for all of us who value them as neighbors.