Matsutake Mushroom
a Washington State Treasure
The history of state symbols and why this is important
The origin of state symbols dates back to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair when a congress of women made a proposal calling for each U.S. State and territory to select a flower to represent their region. Washington has the honor and distinction of being the first state ever to name an official symbol, the Pacific Rhododendron.
Today all U.S. states have official flowers, trees, birds, fish, etc… While the plant and animal kingdoms are well represented, the fungal kingdom is woefully underrepresented with only seven states designating an official mushroom, fungal microbe, or lichen.
Matsutake was first proposed as a state mushroom in 2017 by a group of students at The Evergreen State College in Olympia. Unfortunately that bill failed to pass, but recently some of us here in Washington have decided to renew those efforts!
Why Matsutake?
Western Matsutake (Tricholoma murrillianum) are endemic to the pacific northwest of North America. They grow here in our region and nowhere else in the world.
The Matsutake is a beautiful and charismatic mushroom, which makes it a prime candidate to represent our great state. It’s an excellent mascot to bring awareness to the role fungi play in our delicate ecosystem.
Matsutake mushrooms are mycorrhizal, which means they form mutually beneficial symbiotic relationships with host trees, specifically conifers. This is also why they can’t be cultivated. They can only be found by going into the forests where they naturally grow in association with our famous towering evergreens. Their most common host tree is the Western Hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), which is also the official state tree of Washington. The two go hand-in-hand and depend on each other for nutrient exchange and health.
Matsutake hold an ecological role in the health of our evergreen forests, but they also
serve a role in our state’s economy. They help support our logging industry by supporting our magnificent conifer trees. They are tasty gourmet mushrooms which are commercially picked and exported. They are sometimes called the most expensive mushrooms on the planet, at times even surpassing the value of European truffles.
