CULTURE Spring 2026 23 PHOTOS BY KARL MAASDAM, ’93 IN SEARCH OF WONDER Off trail with an Oregon State undergraduate mushroom foray. By Cora Lassen There was a steady drizzle drumming against the fall foliage when I arrived at Oak Creek with the rest of Associate Professor Jessie Uehling’s mycology class. The sky was gray, but the forest floor was an explosion of fall colors. Baskets in hand, we dispersed, all of us rooting through the wet leaf litter, our eyes close to the ground — or walking slowly through it, scanning for colors or shapes that stood out against the busy backdrop. I was tagging along as an observer, not a student, but every flash of color on the forest floor still sent my heart racing. My eyes played tricks on me: at one point, I mistook a nail in a log for a mushroom, reaching out hopefully to touch it. Other times, I brushed aside leaves to reveal a wet, slightly sticky brown cap, or found greenish shelf mushrooms on a rotting stump. continued
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