Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 31, 1994 TAG: 9408010027
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium
``They're everywhere,'' says Pete Money, education director at the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News.
Money, who occasionally teaches a one-day class on mushroom identification at the museum, said August typically is the biggest month for mushroom growth.
But July has been so rainy and humid that mushrooms might think it is August. The National Weather Service in Norfolk reported that 12.11 inches of rain have fallen this month at Norfolk International Airport - 7.05 inches above the average and 1.62 inches shy of the July record set in 1975.
Rain has kept the soil wet, ideal for mushrooms and other fungi. And the high humidity causes mushroom spores - there are as many as 2 billion in a typical mushroom cap - to drop into the ground, where they may start the growth of new mushrooms.
Some longtime gardeners never have seen anything like it.
Meredith Wilson, 69, of Newport News says she has found more than five types of mushrooms in her yard this month. The retired telephone operator says she has pulled at least 100 mushrooms a day for eight or nine days.
``In all of my years,'' she said, ``I've never seen so many.''
What Wilson is pulling is just the beginning. Under the mushroom's stalk are white, fuzzy strands - the roots of the fungus.
``What you see is like the apple to the apple tree,'' Money says. ``We're seeing a lot of them right now.''
No one knows how many different types of mushrooms exist. Scientists have identified about 3,300 different species.
by CNB