By Gerry Steinauer
This past June, I spent a week collecting mushrooms with Northern Prairies Land Trust ecologist Chance Brueggemann and mycologist Derek Zeller at The Nature Conservancy’s Niobrara Valley Preserve, spanning Brown and Cherry counties. The preserve is home to a unique mix of western pine, eastern deciduous and northern birch woodlands, and no mushroom survey had ever been conducted here before. This offered us an exceptional opportunity for discovery.
Due to drought, we mostly found mushrooms in the heavily shaded, moist springbranch canyons that cut deep into the river’s south bluff, with few specimens in the drier upland pine and deciduous woodlands. Navigating these narrow canyons was challenging; we often found ourselves ankle-deep in cold water, climbing steep slopes and swatting away mosquitoes.
Despite these difficulties, over the course of the week, we collected about 100 species. Each evening in our cabin, Brueggemann and Zeller spread the mushrooms on drying racks and organized their field notes, while I, the project manager — exhausted from trying to keep up with the energetic younger duo — recovered on the couch.
Surveys and Website
This marked our second year of extensive mushroom surveys in eastern Nebraska. In 2023, Brueggemann and Zeller concentrated on the deciduous woodlands at Indian Cave State Park, where they gathered nearly 450 specimens. This past summer, efforts expanded to include Fontenelle Forest preserves near Omaha, Rock Creek Station State Historical Park and the Niobrara Valley Preserve.
Since many mushroom species look nearly identical, we use DNA analysis to help differentiate them. So far, we have conducted DNA analysis on 200 species collected in 2023, and the results suggest we may have discovered a few species new to science. Among our finds are five species of truffle and truffle-like mushrooms, groups never before reported in Nebraska. The spore-producing body of these species, the “mushroom,” develops and remains hidden underground. Once mature, they emit a pungent odor that attracts squirrels, deer and other animals, which dig them up, eat them and spread the spores through their droppings. Brueggemann discovered three truffle species by enlarging holes in the ground he suspected were made by animals searching for them.
One morning at Indian Cave, Brueggemann excavated a truffle from the genus Tuber. Without a collection bag handy, he placed the mushroom in his lunchbox. Unbeknownst to him, the scent of these mushrooms, which include the gourmet European white truffle and Oregon black truffle, can easily transfer to food. Unfortunately, his truffle emitted an odor reminiscent of foul broccoli, forcing him to toss his entire lunch.
One of our goals is to share our discoveries through creation of the Mushrooms of Nebraska website. Zeller and his collaborator Mitchel Pigsley developed and maintain this educational website, which serves as an online mushroom field guide.
It allows visitors to search for mushroom species by genus, type — such as toadstool or puffball, color and edibility. The website includes photographs of each species, along with details about its habitat, growth season and key identification features.
Currently, the site focuses on mushrooms from Indian Cave State Park, but we’ll soon be adding species from our other survey sites. You can explore it at nebraskamushrooms.org. Enjoy!