Rare species found

By Burton Cole

FALMOUTH—Amanda McElfresh and her husband, Tim Richmond, don’t own a TV.

Instead of watching Discovery Channel from the comfort of their couch, they prefer making their own discoveries in the great outdoors.

That’s how Amanda made the first sighting statewide of a rare species of black cup mushrooms last month.

“Our farm in good ol’ Pendleton County is home to the rare Donadinia seaveri as confirmed by mycologist Fenner Morse,” McElfresh announced. “I am super excited as this is the first observation of this mushroom in Kentucky.”

Years ago, that species was known to exist only in Bermuda. It was associated with the Bermuda cedar tree. When an insect infestation wreaked havoc on those cedars, it appeared that those mushrooms had become extinct as well.

But in 2018, Harvard University researchers Donald H. Pfister and Katherine F. LoBuglio announced that the black cup had been discovered in the eastern North America.

It had not, until now, been found this far west.

THE DISCOVERY

McElfresh, 42, said she spotted unusual black mushrooms last year, but when she went back to collect some, they were gone.

When March rolled around this year, she determined to find those mushrooms again—and she did, growing in some moss over fallen cedar limbs on their farm bordering Kincaid Lake.

McElfresh belongs to a number of social media groups dedicated to hiking, foraging, species identifications and other outdoor activities. She posted photos of the mushrooms to see if anyone knew what kind they were.

Morse replied that those looked like a species of black cups unknown in Kentucky. He asked her to send him a mushroom for testing.

“I was nervous to collect it,” McElfresh said. “If it was rare, I didn’t want to pull THE mushroom.”

When she found others like it in the woods — some growing in moss, some at the base of cedar tree, and more recently, in a neighbor’s woods as well — she sent one to Morse.

Morse said, “Thanks to her willingness to collect and send me the specimens, I was able to confirm the identity via microscopic analysis.”

Calling the dark brown or black cup-shaped mushroom an understudied species, he said, “A sample will be sent to the Ohio Mushroom DNA Lab for DNA barcoding as a sequence from a collection this rare could be valuable for other researchers to reference, and it’s nice to give a collection of this value ‘full coverage.’”

Now McElfresh awaits the report from the DNA lab in Ohio.

“I think it just shows the keen diversity of our ecosystem that is here,” she said.

EXPLORE

McElfresh, a Butler native, said her first job, at age 16, was at Kincaid Lake State Park, which she worked through college. McElresh started her studies as an outdoor recreation major and earned her degree in recreation and parks administration. Her husband is big into hiking. Richmond has completed Kentucky’s longest hiking trail, the Sheltowee Trace, a 343-mile trek from Fleming County to the Big South Fork in Tennessee.

“It’s what we do for fun,” she said. “We’re strange. We don’t own a TV. We spend most of our time outside.”

If they’re not in the woods on the farm they bought in 2018, or paddling canoes on the lake or rivers, they’re probably on a trail somewhere.

“I love to be outside. This started years ago. I started with tree identification.

"We hike and backpack a lot. I’ve become aware of my surroundings. There is so much out there.”

McElfresh works as a targeted case manager for a counseling service.

“A big part in mental health is getting outside. I believe if I’m encouraging others to get out there, I’m going to get out there.

“I think it’s important for people to get out and look around. Nature really shows off,” she said.

MORE DISCOVERIES

“You think everything that can be seen has been seen, but there are new things being discovered,” she said. “There’s so much to find.

“It’s really cool to be part of science.”

And even if it’s not new to science, something that’s new to her can be just as thrilling.

McElfresh remembers when she came across the colorful caterpillar larvae of the spicebush swallowtail butterfly. She’d seen the butterfly plenty of times, but not the larvae.

“It’s alien-looking,” she said. “I was just blown away be how beautiful it is.”

She’s excited to see how the bald eagle population is mounting a comeback in Northern Kentucky. Better than reading statistics is observing nature firsthand.

McElfresh also works to root out invasive species that damage, often fatally, native plant life.

Damaging invasives include everything from weeds such as Canada thistle to insects such as the spotted lantern fly.

She said she knows that her individual efforts may not count for much in the grand scheme of things, but she knows she’s making a difference on her own acres.

The more people who will turn off their TVs and go outside to explore nature, the greater the overall difference will be, she said.

SUNRISE PADDLE

She and her husband are the guides for Second Saturday Guided Sunrise Paddle events on Kincaid Lake. On the second Saturday of every month through September, they take a group out to bask in the peace and serenity of sunrise.

Besides exploring local flora, fauna and fungi, they have seen bald eagles fishing, green herons nesting, river otters playing, beavers building dams and an albino deer as the sun burns off the morning fog.

Starting times vary from 6:30 to 7 a.m. depending on when sunrise is.

The program is in collaboration with Kincaid Lake State Park and the Pendleton County Health Department’s 1,000 hours outdoors initiative.

To register for a sunrise paddle, call the park at 859-654-3531 or email Meredith.crawford@ky.gov.

“There’s a lot right here in the Licking Valley, so get out and explore,” McElfresh said.