Two waxycaps nobody had ever named.

The mushroom world has been introduced to a new mushroom species name with some roots in the PNW and with a SSMC sequencing contribution. With a yell of excitement, Sadie Hickey from SSMC found this mushroom while attending the Key Council meeting near Mt Adams in 2019. The new name has just now been formally introduced, a name also with PNW connections. The mushroom was named in honor of Lorelei Norvell, an extremely well-respected mycologist who worked much of her career in the PNW. Lorelei Norvell was especially interested in Phaeocollybia and is author of Phaeocollybia of the Pacific Northwest North America. Lorelei's interest was very broad, though, and included work with Scott Redhead and Joe Ammirati on the Chromosera genus.

Lorelei and Sadie were both attending the Key Council when Sadie made the collection — and how appropriate that this absolutely gorgeous mushroom will now forever honor Lorelei's name. Unfortunately, Lorelei died in 2023, between the time Sadie collected the mushroom and before it gained species status. There was an obvious excitement as we took turns getting a picture of the mushroom. The picture here is of Lauren taking her turn — you can see the determination and dedication to get a quality picture. Lauren Ré, Sadie, and an old carpenter on Little Skookum — all members of SSMC — are listed as authors on the just-released species paper. Congratulations are in order to Sadie for being a top-notch collector.

Deep in the Olympic Mountains, along an elk trail that only opens up once the animals churn through on their way out of McKay Basin, there’s a tiny mushroom that’s been seen just twice in ten years. It grows in a single remote patch near an ancient old-growth cedar, in a stretch of forest so untouched the Forest Service set it aside as the Monarch Tree Grove. Getting there means driving a rough, often-closed logging road past Lake Cushman and into the headwaters of Four Streams — and in 2025, that whole area came within reach of the Bear Gulch III fire before the flames mysteriously slowed and stopped just short of it. The road, though, was destroyed in the process, and it’s unclear if this hidden mushroom patch will ever be reachable again.

Nicknamed “opposite” for its color scheme — a bright red stem topped by a yellow cap, the reverse of most waxcaps — this little fungus stands out against its white, drooping gills. A sample was first collected and sequenced back in 2019, before scientists had a formal way to flag likely new species, and its DNA has since turned up only two close matches: one from China and one from a California collection that carries the provisional name Hygrocybe sp. ‘PNW15.’ All known vouchered specimens have now been passed along to Lauren Ré, a rising star in mushroom taxonomy, in hopes that detailed microscopy work will finally push this quietly spectacular little waxcap toward official species status.