Mushroom missions

A day in advance of an edible botanical walk I did some reconnaissance in the unusually dry North Woods of Central Park. When it is practical, I try to scout ahead, so that on the day of the walk I can lead people to interesting finds.

The woods were dusty and plants drooped. Early October was parched.

A flash of orange on a log caught my eye, but, when I reached it...all gone. Someone, a day - maybe hours - ahead of of me, had found and expertly removed every last one of these chicken of the woods. So I left the woods, my tail dropping sadly.

On walk day it rained. It poured. I canceled.

But later in the afternoon the clouds held their breath and I ventured out, and back into the dripping woodland.

After twelve hours of steady rain there had been a transformation. Plants had revived. The paths were wet and smelled good. Chipmunks whistled and ferried nuts to and fro.

This is one of the woodland goldenrods. Solidago caesia, I think. I straightened up after taking this photo and saw amongst the trees beyond the flash of orange that makes mushroomers point like bird dogs.

POINT! (It helps if you've watched the movie Up!)

Ha. I was very happy that The Other Forager had missed these.

The yellow underside identifies it as Laetiporous sulphureus, which gives chicken of the woods another common name, sulphur shelf.

I've only ever eaten the mushroom in Cape Town, when we found one near my parents' house. I saw them in the Prospect Park Woods, but given the evidence left behind of the human activities that took place there I had no intention of eating anything from those logs. So this was my first New York City specimen.

I removed half the fans from that big central rosette. As it is, we have more than we can eat. (The cooking-of warrants its own post.)

Walking out of the woods I looked down to find what I was really scouting for, the choice hen of the woods (Maitake - Grifola frondosa), still dewy fresh. The first one of the season, for me. October is their month

I needed a mycologist walking-partner. Tiny orange fungi stippled tree bark.

And squeezed from cracks in logs.

 Ubiquitous turkey tails (Trimetes versicolor) frilled fallen trees, everywhere.

I walked north and home, plotting menus.

(The next Central Park wild edibles walk will be on Saturday, October 11th, 12pm- 2pm.)

Tzendze

After the elephants crossing the Letaba River had long disappeared into the tall hardwood trees lining the river, we drove on towards our next camp, Tzendze (and if you have no idea what I am talking about, skip to the bottom of this post and start the journey from the beginning...). 

Tzendze is described by magazines and other campers as a jewel - small, thick with trees, no electricity, very quiet. No bungalows, you needed either a tent or a camper. I had booked two nights here, poring over maps and recommendations back in Brooklyn, making the reservations online, mentally taking us farther and farther from People, who stayed in the south, where the lions preferred to hang out. We were heading north, into mopane veld, poor hunting for lions, but good for birds and misanthropes.

To check in at Tzendze we had to shoot beyond it by a few kilometers, to the larger camp called Mopani (after the vegetation type we were now traversing, characterized by the tree of the same name, with its two-lobed leaves, and monoculture uniformity), with its thatched reception area, shop, paved roads, and gas station. 

And on the way we met these guys, a triumverate of ground hornbills, looking just like diakens in the Dutch Reformed Church, and about as humourless. They are the size of very large turkeys. And they didn't like the car. They pecked its bumper repeatedly, standing right in from of us and attacking their own reflections. And if anyone cares to squat down and look above the left front tire, they will see three dents made by one of these idiots. We could not drive away from their attack or we would have squashed them. We were tempted. Peck, peck, peck. 

One is asked to report sightings of ground hornbills at camps, because they are so scarce. I can see why. Dodos in waiting.

At Mopani, after I'd checked in and been given our papers for Tzendze, and Vince had gassed up the 4 x 4, we stopped - a ritual now - at the shop to see about ice, to sniff around for greens (as if: iceberg lettuce... I mean, you could revolutionize these stores - you have this captive audience, the park's South African side is rich farmland - but it's pale pink tomatoes, iceberg, tired apples and if you're very lucky, a pineapple, which is at least local. What gives? But I digress) and to buy a bottle of brandy. We were out of gin. It happens. And I was going to teach Vince about Klippies and Coke, a sacred Afrikaans cocktail of Klipdrift brandy topped with cold coke. It was a moment of weakness. We blame it on the relentless monotony of the mopane. 

Impala lilies (Adenium multiflorum) outside the shop were gorgeous on their bare, succulent and gnarled stems. And there was a baobab. There were also black guests, at last, for the first time. In the park the visitors we saw were white, while much of the staff, from reception area to rangers, was black. At least that aspect was encouraging. But it is a(nother) disturbing legacy of apartheid, when the last thing on black people's minds or within their financial grasp was conservation. If these magnificent parks are to survive this century they need the support and interest of the majority of the population. 

I marched around about in the dry winter grass looking for the baobab's fruit. 

And then, after a long story involving a case of mistaken camp stand identity - all my fault, but at least I made a couple of friends in the process and wasn't rude to anyone (close call!) -  we found our assigned stand and set up house. And did some laundry. The wide open ablutions block with its pretty thatched roof gave us deep basins for washing and we soaped up and rinsed the clothes as a team and hauled them back to an improvised washing line where they were dry in a few hours. 

After making polite small talk with our elderly neighbors, a dairy farmer and his wife from Napier, in the Cape, staying in a camper van with a screened off porch (they would be here for a month. A month!) to our left, we relaxed.

I inspected, and nibbled at, my baobab fruit. I'd love to see one in bloom. 

Time for that drink.

If we'd known what lay ahead we might have had two. If Vince had known that this would practically be another Paternoster, he might have given me four, to knock me out.

But first. While our supply of future braai meat had been stowed carefully in the communal freezers, I started our supper for that night early - a slow stew that would need hours in the ashy coals. I used the lamb we had bought in the Karoo, at the Travalia Farmstall, en route. 

I start these bredies, or stews, over very hot coals, sizzling the oil and onions together, browning the meat and spices. Then I add the liquid and herbs, and cover with coals. While I worked at this early stage our Napier farmer-neighbour came over tentatively to the line of trees that separates each stand from the other, stood there barefoot in his short shorts and asked deferentially but with utter concern, if my fire was alright. Is alles reg met die vuur?Because daa' is nie vlamme nie. There are no flames. Nee, Oom, I said, No, Uncle: I made it with charcoal (which I start, even worse, with nothing more than newspaper). O.., he said, ambiguously, his accent thick doubt. 

Perhaps it was blasphemy. You can buy very nice dry wood in the park, and it sends flames shooting feet into the air. And in South Africa, the white man is in charge of the fire and the braai. Even if he does not know how to turn on the oven in the kitchen, he cooks meat on the fire. Except in my family, at least on my mom's side, where the women are the braaiers. My mom, my cousin Andrea (her sister's daughter), and me - we braai. 

If you'd like a recipe for this tomato bredie, it's over at (The Food), a classic from a few years back, when we camped very happily in the Eastern Cape's Mountain Zebra National Park. While it cooked we went on a slow and short game drive. Vince took some wonderful elephant pictures. And we saw another baobab. 

Back in camp we met the famous and loquacious Roger, whose friendliness has made him well known in camping circles, and by the time he had stopped talking, our stew was ready.

It was the first of two long nights.

In the tent, while Vince slept a pure sleep, I lay awake and listened to the unforgettable sound of elephants tearing branches from trees, and wondered if they were in the camp. They sounded close. At Balule fellow campers who'd just left Tzendze had said that the perimeter fence had been breached by three elephants. Now, there was an angry trumpeting,  whose effect on one's heart is hard to describe, and more ripping of trees. I imagined them coming to snack on the nice foliage right beside us (not boring day-in, day-out mopani) and squashing us. I sat up and listened and tried to see through the dark trees in front of the tent. I woke the Frenchman. In the end we reasoned that since we'd never had any fruit or food in the tent (a big no-no) they'd probably avoid it if they did come close.

Morning came, and breakfast-coffee. The camp staff confirmed that elephants had come into camp. There was some fuzziness about whether or not the electrified fence was electrified or not. Then came game driving and lunch, and outdoor showers and another braai and an owl sighting.

On our second night a wind kicked up as we braaied and we ate our dinner in the lee of the car, on its tailgate. By the time we had showered the wind had turned into a dry, whipping storm and we battened down the tent with every line it possessed. All night it bucked and shook as a roar like the freight train you read about thundered through the tall trees. I have never heard anything like it. Spots of light came on over the camp as people came out to tie things down and catch what was pelting away. I dreamed of death and catastrophe and in the morning the camp was upside down but we had not been flattened by the falling trees I had imagined.

Over our second morning's coffee and ruks at a nearby picnic site under beautiful trees and overlooking a dry riverbed, we looked at each other and decided with little discussion that heading farther north into more mopane territiory had lost its appeal. We had PMS. Predominent Mopane Syndrome (later it became Post Mopane Syndrome). We felt hemmed in, and thought that our short time in the park might be better dedicated to grassland farther south. Where you can see.

So we went back to Tzendze, shook out the dust, folded and flattened the camp, found Roger and his colleague and tipped them handsomely for keeping everything so nice and clean (our fireplaces were tidied and washed before we were awake), and pointed the Landcruiser's nose south.

We may have hummed a little.

Our Trip so Far:

Cape Town to Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein to Dullstroom
Dullstroom to Tamboti
Tamboti - Camp Life
Tamboti to Olifants
Morning in the Kruger
Balule - the Tiny Camp
The Bridge over the Letaba River

Tamboti - camp life

The view to the monkey tree hotel from our Tamboti tent (impala beneath it)

It was early afternoon when we arrived at Tamboti, and our half-forgotten camp routine, from trips to Nambia, the eastern Free State  and the Eastern Cape creaked rustily back into action.

I like to unpack what we need from the car in on one sweep so that once we're settled, we're settled: Choose food from one of the big plastic bins in the back of the Landcruiser, take out the Kitchen Basket (enamelled tin plates and shallow bowl [good for salads or a side dish], big sharp knife, small sharp knife, chopping board, cutlery, place mats, kikoi, matches, candles and their chimneys - I believe in ambient lighting and eschew the practical but romance-killing blue-white arc light glare employed by Serious Campers. And next time I'd use a bigger Kitchen Basket and add to it the four staples: olive oil, sherry vinegar, salt and pepper - it was a pain to haul them out of a plastic bin every time); take out the Breakfast Box (Illy coffee, sugar, enamel mugs, teaspoons, rusks). The little Cadac for making coffee in the morning. Plus clothes, toiletries, flashlight.

So that is what we did. We locked the food in its big, monkey-proof cage as instructed, and chilled what we needed in the caged fridge. A bottle of red wine was ready for that night's first sampling of the Karoo lamb chops and boerewors, and then we were ravenously ready for our lunch.

Tomato and cheese sandwiches. As fancy as it got. 

Strange fruit. Hanging in the tree branches above the path to our tent. Probably Cucumis - but what? I didn't know enough about them to taste, and knew that some are poisonous. I was hoping to buy a book in the park about local flora, but Tamboti was too small a camp to have a shop. Now I know that they are Cucumis metuliferous, or horned cucumber, and quite edible. But I did not know that, then. Pity.

Visiting the gone-to-seed wild dagga plants beside our deck were many small sunbirds.

And bees hummed around this sweetly flowering tree, below, beside the braai.

It was a little like hearing a new language and not understanding it. Over the next few days, slowly, as I realized that the bigger camps had names attached to the trees within camp to help identify them, I started to recognize forms and textures, and slowly speak the rudiments of the language of Lowveld plants.

But not a single shop had the sort of serious flora book I was looking for, which was a shame, and a missed opportunity for SAN Parks, which have a captive audience within the park borders. And this country must produce the best botanical books I have ever seen.

On a trip to the ablutions block I passed the daily delivery of fresh towels and linens to the tents.

The small communal kitchen below allowed people to cook on electric stove plates and wash dishes. Vince, the designated dishwasher, met his first campers here - the first of a steady stream of Afrikaans ladies: well built and compact, with short hair often dyed a shade of burgundy.

It's true.

We went for our first sunset drive, still rather road-beaten and travel-shocked from our long trek from Cape Town. Still a little uptight and unrelaxed.

You only take this picture once: wildebeest (or "gnu" as Vince insisted on calling them). It means you're new (gnu?). After that you hardly credit their existence. Poor things. They are the most overlooked animal.

And then the sun went down, at 5pm. And we turned back, to reach camp by gate-closing time, a strict 5.30pm, when the gates are swung shut against the night and its predators and the silent of foot. But not before stopping beside an antique and blue car which looked unhappy. It had a flat tyre and the owner came up to our window (you are not allowed out of your vehicle in the park) and explained in a heavy German accent that he could not change it as he had no tools. There was a pregnant pause, but we failed to offer to fix his wheel for him, but took down his details and promised to notify the park minders, which we did.

Back at our temporary home, we cooked our chops, ate the first of many iceberg salads, and settled in for a long and eventful night.

The Trip so Far:

Day 1 - Cape Town to Bloemfontein
Day 2 - Bloemfontein to Dullstroom
Day 3 - Dullstroom to Tamboti

Camping at the Mountain Zebra National Park

 

Morning at the Mountain Zebra National Park and we watched new neighbours pull in while we sleepily drank coffee in our camp chairs. Most of the people who camped around us, all over the country, were probably over sixty and well attuned to the lifestyle. You could see that routines and delegation were firmly established, and our own camp set up followed the same lines. Man does tent, woman does kitchen. The Stone Age rules. We saw no same sex couples except for two girls who left the site very early, in a Renault, and who slept in their car during the rainstorm in the night. So no observation was possible. 

We drove out for a viewing of animals, hoping to see the cheetahs that were somewhere in the park, and perhaps the buffalo. Buffaloes. Buffalo. Plural. We had also wanted to do the walk that set off right outside our tent, but were told that a minimum of three people had to go. One to be wounded/sick/bitten/trampled, one to stay with the wounded/sick/bitten/trampled, and one to go for help (and be wounded, faint, eaten or trampled on the way?). We were sad about that. We were not afraid of cheetah. Cheetahs. Cheetah. Plural. But of the buffalo/es, who are very mean when snuck up on unexpectedly and potentially lethal when they charge into you. 

So, no walk.

This was weird. A pristine pool a short drive from camp, surrounded by lawn and braai areas. With rules below. We took special notice of "preditors [sic] can enter the picnic site..."

We saw some kudu here, under the trees, but they bounded away in great leaps.

Sutera halmifolia

Please correct me if you notice that I have made mistakes identifying some flowers...

Aptosimum procumbens - Karoo violet, last seen on Doornberg.

A gogga with a fuzzy coat living it up. Mylabris occulata, or CMR beetle (ID courtesy of woodfirer).

Gazania pectinata growing in the gravel beside the road.

 

I am hopeless at differentiating between bushy helichrysums.

This view and drive were breathtaking. especially with the cloud cover. We spent a long time up here trying to find the buffaloes, looking at zebra, and scanning every bush for a rhino. And then our tummies growled and we drove back down to camp, for some lunch.

 

And a beer.This folding table was incredibly useful and versatile. One of my favourite things while camping. It made an instant home outside our tent. For coffee, books, beer, candles, plates...Just thought I'd mention it.

 

Lunch: toasted sandwiches, on the fire. Leftover potbread, unhealthy white bread out of a bag (and well aged), yellow (!) cheddar, and some cherry tomatoes, which travel very well.

 

Yee ha.

Clearly we ate them too fast to photograph.  

Time to make the afternoon drive. If you're tired of flowers go to Vincent's post and see landscape and animals...

 

Heliophila, definitely, and maybe H.subulata.

My new favourite genus, though that does not mean that I can identify its members. I saw my first Hermannia in Namibia in 2009, at Klein Aus Vista, and was smitten with their delicate, bell like flowers. I had no idea what it could be. Above, possibly Hermannia cococarpa.

Growing in a great mass in some stones at an outlook point in whipping wind, perhaps Hermannia depressa, or rooi opslag, in Afrikaans.

And Hermannia linnearifolia? Help.

Here's the happy gogga again, in what I was sure would be the easiest flower of all to identify. Obviously a hibiscus, yes? Malvaceae, yes? So, can I find it in a book or on the web? No. Help! It grew no taller than 6".

Sutera somethingorothera. Definitely. I know. I am forgetting to take pictures of leaves.

Is this tortoise berry, Nylandtia spinosa?

Below, looking like a white version of my birdsfoot violets (Viola pedata) in Brooklyn. Growing in bone dry shale beside the road, I think it is an oxalis, the split leaf helping with ID: Oxalis smithiana. They can also be pink. Closed perhaps because of the wind.

I am not sure where my love of pelargoniums comes from. I get so excited when I see them in the wild. This one was almost crushed by the heavy 4 x 4. Growing in the road, just on the edge, a tiny, tiny flower, smaller than the nail on my smallest finger, and almost black.

Back at home I started a lamb knuckle stew with tomatoes, herbs, peri peri, garlic and potatoes. It was the first time I had attempted something braised on a fire, and I figured about three hours for it, in cooling coals.

While it cooked we snuck up the forbidden path, just a short way.

 

And found a songololo.

Who played to the audience and curled up.

I used to play with them when I was little. Selina is terrified of them and freaks out 100% (loudly) if she sees even a tiny one in Cape Town (which only ever has tiny ones). She was told as a little girl, growing up in the Free State,  that if you were bitten by one you had to count all its legs, accurately, or you would die. The impossibility still gives her palpitations.

Back at home base: camp salad. Long-lived iceberg, well-traveled avocado.

And the bredie to end all bredies.