
I still find it hard to believe that this luxurious purple comes from a mushroom, Hapalopilus rutilans. This is a small, brown, unassuming shelf fungus found on birch trees, trees that don’t grow in our coastal rainforest—this dyepot was the result of a gift from Sweden.
I like to throw a handful of angelina, a sparkly synthetic fibre, into dyepots to see what colour it will pick up—it’s not always what I expect. (The angelina is sitting on the lighter bundle of roving, which came from the exhaust bath.)
The roving didn’t dye evenly, as I didn’t move it around much in the dyepot—the variation makes for some interesting spinning. I used a ratio of two parts mushrooms to one part fibre.
The mordants on the bundle of test strands, left to right: no mordant, alum, iron, and copper. The sample bits of fibre threaded onto the card, from top to bottom: alum first bath, angelina, alum exhaust bath, iron from a second cooking of the mushrooms.
The copper strand came out a rich, coppery brown. I have enough dried mushrooms for another dyepot, and I think I may have to do that one with a copper mordant.
A cousin to this mushroom, H. nidulans, has been found in northern British Columbia, so I think a trip to the birch forests of the Cariboo would be in order later this year. Two dyepots are clearly not enough!
Now I’m wondering if that’s what’s growing on the old birch trunk still standing in my paddock – two huge specimens, but they would be old by now and probably not useful. If only I’d known! — going outside immediately to take a look.
It never hurts to try, no matter how old! Here are some images on Mushroom Observer for comparison.
I did end up boiling the smallest, newest looking one and got brown water. But I think they’ve been there for a couple of years, even though I plant dye, mushroom species seem to be out of my understanding. Even the photos you showed look wildly different to me, so I bet some that are different look the same…
Well, at least you tried! And I’d try again when you find some fresh mushrooms, just to make sure. You’re right – mushroom ID can be tricky at the best of times – lifelong learning at its finest.
If youu really decide to come to the caribou, please let me knoe. Would you be available for a workshop? I can think of 5 or 10 people who would be interested in attending. Thanks for all of the fun learning,
Gwen