Captain who?
Why it's Captain Max Mushroom, the world's first mushroom super hero and mascot of the Mt. Elphinstone Living Forest environmental group. Yes, Captain Max stands for the preservation and protection of all mushrooms and their habitats. Wherever mushrooms are downtrodden, trampled or clear-cut, Captain Max, that Champion of Champignons, will be there!
Here at the Mt. Elphinstone Herbarium
you can read all about Captain Max, the Mt. Elphie Living Forest group
and thier efforts to save the mushrooms of Mt. Elphie.
MOUNT ELPHIE
When not out saving the world
from fungi related frowns of fortune, you'll usually find Captain Max in
his tree stump or wandering the south slopes of Mt. Elphinstone. Devastated
by a forest fire over 120 yrs. ago, Mt. Elphie is a mix of mostly 2nd-growth
and some fire scarred old growth cedar and fir and is situated above Robert's
Creek on the Sunshine Coast of beautiful British Columbia, Canada. The
forests of Mt. Elphinstone support an amazing number of mushroom species,
estimated at over a thousand. Edibles such as White and Yellow Chanterelles,
Oysters, Angel Wings, Cauliflower's and several Boletus, abound. In the
fall, many mushroom pickers make a living working the valuable pine pickery
(Tricholoma magnivelare).
The forest floor comes alive
after the October rains with dozens of different mycena's, clitocybe's
and cortinarius popping up everywhere. Large fleshy specimens of
various trichaloma, lactarius and russula species
dot the mossy forestscape while numerous polypores cover the logs. The
bases of trees often sprout hundreds of Honey, Sulfur or Pholiota
mushrooms. Poisonous species such as Amanita muscaria, smithiana
and silvacola are very common. The recently discovered A.aprotica
is rarer.
On the inhabited lower part
of the mountain is Robert's Creek, a community of aging musicians,
artists, writers, poets and hippie types. During the spring and summer
one can easily find Amanita pantherina's lining the highway through
"The Creek" and throughout the local golf course. In the fall, the popular
hallucinogenic Psilocybe cyanescens, the Bluing Psilocybe, makes
it's appearance in local fields.
MOUNT ELPHINSTONE LIVING FOREST
group 
In 1993, the
Mt.
Elphinstone Living Forest group was formed by local residents in answer
to the logging companies plans of clearcutting the mountain. The group
holds guided walks through the threatened area and has been campaigning
to stop the logging. On their side is popular opinion, common sense and
the recently discovered Tricholoma appium. Their adversaries are
greedy government officials and the logging giants.
A government plan to create
parks in the province prompted a 1500 hectare application from the group.
A vigorous campaign produced almost a thousand honorary members, posters,
postcards, t-shirts and several radio, tv and newspaper appearances. Citing
one of the last low-level, easily-accesible high diversity forests left
in the province and the rare T. appium's 'mother patch', as reasons
to save the mountain, three patches of 50 hectares each were designated
as 'ecological preserves'.
Local environmentalists were
disappointed, declaring that, in order to protect bio-diversity, a large
area was needed, not three small islands in a sea of clearcuts. The fight
goes on.
CAPTAIN MAX MUSHROOM
Captain
Max Mushroom is the 'discovery' of a local designer and a freelance writer.
The pair supposedly discovered the 'Hooded Hero' while hiking in the ecological
preserve on Mt. Elphie's south slope. He was living in a burnt out tree
stump and in a state of shock. Apparently, he was confused due to some
new 'powers' he seemed to possess.
"His
costume basically evolved from the materials I had on hand." explained
the disigner. "All I had to work with was an old Forest Ranger shirt, a
mask and a cape so a super hero costume was a natural."
Appearing
in public for the first time at the 1996 Earth Day festivities in Robert's
Creek prompted local paper the Coast Independent to report that "Captain
Mushroom posed for pictures, signed autographs and answered questions asked
by the many children who followed him throughout the day."
Rival
paper, The Gibsons Outlook countered two weeks later with a photo of the
Captain "professing his creed of fighting for the mushroom to a gathering
of enviro-groupies."
He
has since appeared at roadside rally's of up to 50 placard holding tree
huggers and during the Higgley-Wiggley parade during Creek Daze. His next
scheduled appearance will be later this year at a benefit dance at the
Robert's Creek hall. Here, he will 'spring-up' on stage and give a gut
wrenching speech on mushroom preservation.
THE LEGEND OF CAPTAIN MAX
"Gramps," little seven year old Travis called to the hobbling gent ahead
of him, "just who is this Captain Max Mushroom guy? Everyone at school
is talking about him!" The pair had hiked these Mt. Elphie trails many
times in the springs and falls of the past two years, searching for Morchella
elata, Tricholoma magnivelare, Cantherellus formosa or any other findable
food fungi and the old man was never fazed by the questions the youngster
could come up with.
"Well
kiddo," he replied while lowering his packsack to the ground and settling
in nicely atop a Barbula cylindrica-covered log, "Why don't you
pull up a stump and I'll tell you all about him."
With
the thrumming of a Dryocopus pileatus sounding from above and the
hoot-hoot-hoot of a Strix occidentalis echoing from off in the distance,
Travis climbed atop a Pamelia lichen-laden rock surrounded by old-growth
Thuja plicata dripping in Neckera douglasii and surrounded
by Gualtheria shallon and listened as the grizzled ole 'shroomer
began his tale...
"It all started over in yonder hills, he said, pointing his Arbutus
menziesii cane over to the next ridge where the discovery of the rare
and endangered Trichaloma appium mushroom had saved the area from
being logged. Soon after, the Mt Elphinstone Mushroom Sanctuary was proclaimed
and the Herbarium was built. Professer Maxima was in charge. His real name
was Calvatia but we all called him Cal. Your cousin Mabel sure had a crush
on him as did all the giggling schoolgirls of the area!
Anyways,
this one particular day was very strange. It started out with all the animals
and birds dissappearing overnight. No Corvus corax calls that morning,
no Sphyrapicus varius banging on my eavesdrop, even Blackey the
Felix domestica was nowhere to be found. Those creatures knew something
we Homo sapiens didn't, but we soon found out what it was. Right
at the stroke of noon everything just started a-rockin' and a-rollin',
we were in the throes of a full-blown earthquake!
And
as for the professer, he was up on the 3rd. floor of the Herbarium, working
in the spore laboratory. The shelves were lined with bottles of spore from
hundreds of mushroom species and when that quake started up, those samples
started flyin' everywheres. Soon the professer was buried in the stuff,
the roof had cracked open, water was pouring in and live electrical wires
were hanging just above his head. And thats when Captain Max Mushroom was
born. When those wires hit the water, the spores hit the fan and left the
professer the way we know him today. His molecular structure was changed
and he is able to take on the properties of 1000 specie of fungi!
As
a crime-fighting superhero he protects all the mychorizial macro-fungi's.
Usually he'll appear as a Giant Puffball, ready to roll over any criminal
or poacher in his path, but he has also saved rare mushroom fields from
lava flows by turning into a giant Fuligo septico and smothering
the volcanoe. As a mushroom spore, he is the planets only living organism
which can withstand the rigors of outer space and by using the rocket fuel
compounds found in the Gyromitra esculenta, he is able to travel
to other planets!"
The
boy dunked his cup into the stream running next to them, took a drink,
spat out a Ascaphus truei, then said "Cool! Go on Gramps!"
Taking
a swig from his canteen, the oldtimer checked his watch, his compass and
his map, swatted at the Aedes sierrensis buzzing about his head
then continued. "And you know boy?...He's based right here on Mt. Elphie
where he protects North America's only Mushroom Sanctuary! Ya, I hear he's
working part-time as a mild-mannered reporter now, at least until the Herbarium
is rebuilt but his feats have become legendary. He knows ALL the Latin
names, even for the unamed mushrooms!"
"Wow!"
exclaimed the young fungi fan. Just then a rustle came from behind the
Vaccinum ovatum to the left of them.....
TO BE CONTINUED......
This page created Dec.15, 1998
mailto:elphinstone@telus.net
Last updated Jan. 10, 2006