Mushrooms Here Today, Squashed Tomorrow––

Fairy Ring Sprouts Outside Edmond Town Hall

By Dottie Evans

If you see a faery ring in a field of grass,

Very lightly step around, tip-toe as you pass…

Unfortunately, somebody was not tip-toeing a month ago when he or she walked across a shady, mulched border outside the town clerk’s office at Edmond Town Hall where a rare species of mushrooms had sprouted in a three-foot-wide circle, known to folklore and fable as a fairy ring.

Stomping with giant steps was more like it.

No doubt, the prospect of squashing all those ugly-looking little fungi was just too tempting because within two days of their discovery, they were gone.

The appearance and sudden disappearance of the fairy ring would not even have been noted except for the sharp eyes of Susan Hildred, an antiques appraiser with Executive Appraisals, who lives and works out of her home at 86½ Main Street.

Ms Hildred was walking by town hall one morning and saw the rare circle of mushrooms, so she stopped by the town clerk’s office to tell her friend Cindy Simon about it. She knew Cindy was interested in the natural environment, in ancient rocks, fossils, and the like.

“It’s my business to notice things,” Ms Hildred said of the mushroom circle –– and it is a good thing that she did.

It was the end of May, during the week of the town’s third and last 2003–2004 budget referendum and as town clerk, Mrs Simon was far too preoccupied with collecting absentee ballots and helping register voters to be gazing out her window at the landscape.

“I must have walked by that place dozens of times and I didn’t even see it,” Mrs Simon admitted.

“After Susan told me about it, I ran and got my camera which, luckily, happened to be in my car that day.”

Lucky, indeed, because by the time The Bee arrived the following day to photograph the ring, the mushrooms were crushed. Before that, several townspeople did manage to glimpse the fairy ring in all its magical glory, according to Sue Schpunt, who also works in the town clerk’s office.

“The word spread out, sort of mushroomed, you could say,” Mrs Schpunt said.

Fairy Rings: Fact And Fable

Fairy ring mushrooms (Marasmius oreades) reproduce by spores, which spread in the wind but also may spread underground. Threadlike roots called mycelium grow outward from the center as the mushroom, a single organism, seeks new food. Over a period of years, the ring and its mushrooms sprouting at the outward edge may spread to many feet across.

A number of studies measuring distance and growth rate have estimated that rings of M. oreades are probably centuries old and hundreds of feet across. Eventually the center dies and the only living part is around the outside edge.

If the moisture level and conditions of the surrounding soil are just right, up sprouts the fairy ring.

In folklore, fairy rings have long been a favorite subject of fantasy and superstition. The following excerpts were taken from the Janesville Gazette, by Marci Nelesen, August 30, 2001.

Fairy rings were dance floors for naughty sprites, who were known to snatch the unwary and carry them off into underground kingdoms.

You could hear fairies laughing and talking if you ran nine times around a fairy ring. But you were advised to run in the direction of the sun or risk capture.

People passing by a fairy ring were told to reverse the directions of their hats to confuse the fairies, who might want to trick them into dancing.

People who interfere with the dance place of the fairies were at risk of being struck blind or lame.

An extreme punishment, indeed. We sincerely hope these dire consequences will not result in the case of the unknown person who squashed the Edmond Town Hall fairy ring.