California Indian Ethnomycology and Associated Forest Management

Many California Indian tribes utilized mushrooms for food, medicine and technological purposes. Through ethnographic interviews, participant observation and historic literature reviews, we summarize which mushroom species were important to California Indian tribes in historic and modern times. We present details of how tribal groups gather, manage, prepare and store mushrooms for beneficial uses. We detail how Indigenous knowledge, sustainable harvest strategies, and stewardship of mushrooms may affect forest health at different levels of biological organization. We conclude by offering suggestions for research, management, and restoration practices needed to perpetuate useable mushrooms.