Study Context

Yunnan Province, China, is widely recognized for its rich biological and cultural diversity (Mullaney 2011; Myers et al. 2000; Stepp 2005; Yang et al. 2004). Up to 700 species of edible mushrooms are estimated to grow in Yunnan (Mortimer et al. 2012, 2014), with over 140 unique species previously documented for sale in regional markets (Wang et al. 2004). Moreover, wild fungi are widely recognized as an important market sector in the province, benefiting a range of actors from local harvesters to regional middleman traders to export companies (Arora 2008; He 2010). Although numerous regional studies highlight wild mushroom commodity chains, divergent traditions of mycological science, and sustainable management practices (Menzies and Li 2010; Mortimer et al. 2012; Tsing et al. 2008; Yang et al. 2008, 2009; Yeh 2000), relatively few investigate the ethnomycological knowledge of mushroom harvesters (but see: Brown et al. 2018; He et al. 2011; Tsing 2015). At the same time, over the last few decades, Yunnan has been a key site for national and international conservation initiatives, within which the role of indigenous people and knowledge has varied (Fox et al. 2009; Hathaway 2013; Sturgeon 2005). For example, the World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy, two major international conservation groups, conducted sustainable development projects in Yunnan during the early 2000s to develop wild mushroom harvesting as a local livelihood strategy (WWF 2018; Yang et al. 2009). These and other applied conservation initiatives suggest that increased engagement with indigenous knowledge about all aspects of ecological systems, including fungi, may improve local suitability of future conservation efforts in the region (Brown et al. 2018; Xu et al. 2005).

Data were gathered in four natural villages in Nanhua County, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province (Figure 1). Nanhua County is well known in Yunnan for their abundant wild forest mushrooms. In Nanhua city, newly installed street lamps are shaped like mushrooms, mushroom murals cover building facades, and mushroom-shaped houses can be seen dotting the surrounding hills. During each rainy season since at least 2004, (Xinhua 2018) Nanhua has hosted a wild mushroom festival with live music, dancing, food, and mushroom-related activities. Harvesters from across the county bring exceptionally large specimens of lingzhi (Ganoderma spp.) and songrong (Tricholoma spp., often Tricholoma matsutake) to the festival to compete for prizes (Figure 2).

Each of the communities included in this study are primarily indigenous Yi cultural groups and adjacent or near one another within the same administrative village. Local mushroom-producing forests are mixed pine and deciduous trees. Of the four communities, most data are from Baihua village (a pseudonym to protect participant anonymity). Baihua is a primarily indigenous Yi ethnic community with 73 resident households, each of which actively participates in a locally developed community-based wild mushroom management system. Wild mushrooms—particularly Tricholoma matsutake (in Mandarin: songrong, and in Yi: mene)—are an important part of local livelihoods and identity. For example, during ethnographic fieldwork in Baihua in 2014, a CCTV7 (the national agricultural channel) crew filmed part of a television episode in the community, featuring their local matsutake as an ecological and healthy specialty product. This experience further strengthened community members' sense of pride about local wild mushrooms. In addition to ethnoecological knowledge from Baihua, this paper also introduces local mushroom knowledge from three neighboring communities in the region. Like Baihua, these neighboring communities' forests are predominantly mixed pine and deciduous trees and residents' livelihoods are primarily agrarian.

Figure 1.

Map of four study sites (Map: Madeline Brown).

Figure 2.

Nanhua County Mushroom Festival. A large prize-winning lingzhi mushroom hangs in the right foreground at a Nanhua market during the annual festival. The plaque reads “Lingzhi Mushroom King.” (Photograph: Madeline Brown).

Species Diversity

Interviewees in Baihua reported collecting a total of 48 named mushroom folk species. By contrast, the Nanhua interviews elicited a total of 28 unique mushroom folk species, while harvesting bout observations yielded 51 unique named mushroom folk species. Collectively, 90 unique folk species (54 of which were reported more than once) were documented in Nanhua through combining the three datasets (Table 1). The Yi, Mandarin, and potential Latin names for many of these local fungi species are included in the  Appendix (Supplement.pdf). Figure 3 also includes names and photos for several common species in Yi, Mandarin, and Latin. In addition to named mushroom folk species, many respondents in the Nanhua sites and several in Baihua also mentioned zajun as a commonly collected mushroom type. Zajun means “miscellaneous” mushrooms and usually collectively refers to all types of mushrooms with low cognitive salience or value. The exact species included in the zajun category may vary across individuals and communities.

Not all collected mushrooms are necessarily given specific names. Of 543 observations of harvested mushrooms (i.e., unique morphospecies per bout, across all bouts), 89 observations involved unnamed mushrooms. These unnamed mushroom observations include numerous mushroom species—such as Amanita spp., Phylloporus sp., and others—that are commonly collected and sold, but are not named in local taxonomic systems. In addition, harvesting bout observations showed that local folk taxonomic distinctions did not always align with scientific binomial nomenclature. Therefore, in calculating the number of named species, all xiaohuangjun (little yellow mushroom) are considered a single type of mushroom, as they are all named the same thing in local folk taxonomy. Given their morphological variation, it is possible that these mushrooms might be divided into 3–4 unique species in scientific nomenclature.

Species Knowledge and Use

When asked to name all the mushroom species they commonly collect, harvesters in Baihua named an average of 2.65 more species than harvesters in Nanhua (Table 2). Gender does not seem to play a role in mushroom knowledge. No significant differences in the number of mushroom species named were found between women and men (mean = 6.27 [SD = 2.37] and 5.64 [SD = 2.87] species for women and men, respectively, t = 0.832, DF = 28.779, p = 0.412).

Mushrooms in Nanhua are primarily harvested for commercial purposes. Some species, such as T. matsutake and Boletus edulis, are generally sold fresh on the day they are picked, while the majority of less economically valuable species are usually dried before being sold. Some households build specialized sheds for dehydrating mushrooms, while others dry the mushrooms on their rooftops and outdoor cement entryways (Figure 4). Some species, such as megeqi (Lyophyllum sp.) and chume (Lactarius sp.), are preferentially eaten rather than sold. For the more economically valuable species, only damaged, bug-eaten, or older fruiting bodies are eaten by harvesters.

Table 1.

Total number of mushroom folk species in several Yi communities, gathered through interviews and bout observations.

Figure 3.

Common mushrooms in Baihua. (Y) = Yi name, (M) = Mandarin name, (L) = Latin name. (Photographs: Madeline Brown).

Table 2.

Average mushroom species named per respondent.

Common Mushroom Species

The most common mushrooms collected in the study sites are assessed through four metrics: 1) nomination frequency in Baihua interviews, 2) nomination frequency in Nanhua interviews, 3) harvest frequency in observed bouts, and 4) total kilograms harvested in observed bouts. Compiling the top five species from the four metrics yields a total of 10 distinct folk species (plus the general “mushroom” [zajun] category) (Table 3). Each metric presents slightly different assessments of most commonly harvested mushroom species in Nanhua. Matsutake is the top mushroom mentioned in both interview datasets and is also the top species gathered by weight in the bout data. However, matsutake was only observed in ∼66% of harvesting bouts. This discrepancy may be due to the fact that matsutake is often sold separately from other mushroom species and may not be reliably reported or observed in some bouts.

The local salience of each folk species as commonly collected species was assessed using Smith's S, calculated using the AnthroTools R package (Purzycki and Jamieson-Lane 2016; Smith and Borgatti 1997; Smith et al. 1995). The salience of the freelisted mushroom species largely corresponded to the general frequency of mention (Table 4 and Figure 5). In all four study communities, mene (T. matsutake) and mechizai (B. edulis) ranked as the top two most salient species. This reflects their high economic value compared to other local mushroom species, leading them to be both the most commonly collected mushrooms and the most salient mushrooms in this functional category.

Figure 4.

Achimepei (Lactarius lactifluus) drying on a front porch. (Photograph: Madeline Brown).

Table 3.

Top Five Mushroom Species. This table conveys the top ‘commonly collected’ local species through four metrics. For ‘bouts by frequency’, the top 5 species are those that occurred in the greatest number of bouts. In the Nanhua interviews, ‘zajun’ or ‘miscellaneous mushrooms’ appeared in the top five species, so an additional species was included for that ranking.

Harvesting Practices

Mushroom harvesting is a widespread activity in Nanhua County, particularly in the community of Baihua. Individuals often combine mushroom harvesting with additional agricultural and other local day labor (dagong) activities. Since these bouts are based on convenience sampling, they are not necessarily representative of the community as a whole (in terms of group composition or time spent harvesting) but are varied enough to be representative of the diversity of harvested mushrooms in local forests.

The collective mushroom management systems in Baihua are somewhat unique compared to other mushroom harvesting communities. This system allows households to cooperatively harvest mushrooms in multi-family groups. Here, mushroom harvesting plays a role in building social ties among community members. Observed bouts from nine different harvesting groups in Baihua involved an average of 2.63 individuals (SD = 2.15, N = 38), and ranged from one to ten foragers per bout. It should be noted, however, that many of these bouts were conducted by a single two-adult household, which may drive down the average. During ethnographic fieldwork, multi-household harvesting groups were commonly observed. Working together allows households to allocate labor across multiple livelihood activities and buffer against economic loss on days when some group members may not be available to harvest mushrooms.

Table 4.

Salience of Freelisted Commonly Collected Mushrooms. The top five species with the highest Smith's S salience scores are included for both the Baihua and Nanhua sites' freelists.

Figure 5.

This figure displays the relative salience of each freelisted mushroom species in both Baihua and the Nanhua sites. This plot includes all species named by more than one individual within each study site. The vertical line marks the 0.1 index (see: Smith et al. 1995), as a benchmark for salience. Names are translated to Yi where possible, or left with the original transcription. For clarity, only species named by more than one individual are included. Eight species and three species are above the 0.1 salience index in Baihua and the Nanhua sites respectively. In the Nanhua sites, the third most salient mushroom type was zajun, a catch-all category for general, less economically-valuable mushrooms. This suggests there may be less mushroom knowledge and livelihood specialization in the Nanhua communities compared to Baihua.

Table 5.:

Average characteristics of mushroom harvesting bouts in Baihua.

As not all species were given unique names by harvesters, I assess species diversity both as the total unique observed morphospecies and the total named species per bout. Harvesting bouts are sometimes focused on gathering only T. matsutake, while, in other cases, multiple species are collected. Over 38 bouts, about 2.73 more unique morphospecies were collected than unique named species (Table 5). These results indicate that not all morphologically distinct local species require names in order to be recognized as edible and/or commercially valuable.

The average time per bout observed in Baihua is nearly identical to the average hours per day spent mushroom harvesting reported by interviewees in Nanhua (Table 6). Because mushroom harvesting occupies an average of around four hours a day, it can be combined with additional livelihood activities during a single workday. During ethnographic work, harvesters were observed to plan their mushroom harvesting days based on precipitation patterns, since fruiting bodies are locally known to emerge more frequently following rainfall than during dry weather periods.

Reported mushroom incomes varied between Baihua and the neighboring Nanhua communities. In Baihua, the mean reported mushroom income was 15,167 RMB ($2,427 USD [Conversion rate based on October 2014 rate of RMB: USD of 1: 0.16.]) (SD = 9,992, N = 46 [respondents with at least one response for mushroom income]). The maximum reported mushroom income was 47,450 RMB ($7,592 USD). In the neighboring Nanhua communities, the mean reported mushroom income was only 5,570 RMB ($891 USD) (SD = 7867, N = 39). The Nanhua interviews included some individuals who reported collecting mushrooms, but not having any associated income. The maximum reported mushroom income in the Nanhua sites is similar to that in Baihua, at 40,000 RMB ($6,400 USD). Income discrepancies between sites may be related to the amount of available mushroom-producing forest (particularly forest areas with abundant high-value T. matsutake), as well as alternative income-generating opportunities in each community.

Table 6.

Time spent harvesting mushrooms across several time scales. Data from Nanhua sites is based on interviews. Data from Baihua is based on harvester reports and observed harvesting bouts.

Local forests are divided into several distinct land tenure regimes, both collectively and privately managed. Interviewees in the Nanhua communities were asked where they commonly collect mushrooms. Each interviewee reported harvesting mushrooms in only one type of forest, regardless of the species. Most collect mushrooms on their own private forest or ziliusenlin (87.18%), while a few interviewees reported collecting mushrooms in collective forests or jitilin (7.69%), and in other households' private forests (2.56%) (n = 39). By contrast, in Baihua, mushroom harvesting is regulated at the community level. All community members gather mushrooms on temporarily contracted land, which may be private or collective forest.

Local Tools for Distinguishing Species

Accurately identifying mushrooms before selling or eating them is an important aspect of harvesting wild mushrooms, both in Yunnan and elsewhere. Harvester knowledge about mushroom species identification in Nanhua is obtained solely through experience. Currently, there are no local field guides to wild mushrooms and new harvesters often learn from their parents or other experienced local harvesters. Although the process of knowledge transmission is beyond the scope of the current paper, here I discuss mushroom identification knowledge as it is embedded in local mycological nomenclature. Yi mushroom names in Nanhua often involve three primary themes: 1) morphological attributes, 2) species habitat and ecology, and 3) metaphorical names.

Mycologists often discourage the use of color as a primary tool for fungi identification. This is because, depending on the age of the fruiting body, its ecological context, and recent weather patterns, a given species may display a highly variable color palette (Arora 2008). Moreover, classifying color in a global context can be difficult since the meaning of color descriptions may vary, and photographs or drawings present particular specimens rather than the range of variation within a species (Arora 1979). This is often considered generally accepted knowledge (Morris 2000). However, Yi mushroom harvesters in Nanhua regularly distinguish between similar species using color as the defining characteristic. It may be that, within the defined spatial scale of an administrative township, variation in mushroom fruiting body color is minimal. In addition, in Nanhua, edible wild fungi are highly abundant, while look-alike poisonous fungi are relatively rare (or at least not a major concern among mushroom harvesters). There may be local ecological conditions that allow Nanhua harvesters to rely on color for species identification to a greater degree than is possible elsewhere.

Reliance on anatomical features other than color to identify fungi species has been noted among various mushroom harvesting cultures (e.g., Arora 1979; Morris 2000). Mushroom fruiting body flesh texture may be described as leathery, chalk-like, brittle, or woody, as well as a variety of other textures (Arora 1979). Yi mushroom names often encode information about the species' texture. For example, tameye is a “slippery pine mushroom,” while mechiqia is “sweet brittle mushroom.” Color changing properties are also frequently referenced in mushroom names and knowledge in Nanhua. On the contrary, none of the documented mushroom names include references to a mushroom's smell.

Noting the relative importance of color and surface texture for identifying mushrooms among Yi harvesters also relates to an important observation about the development and scope of taxonomic systems. Although some mycologists aim to identify mushroom species in order to situate the species within the broader international classification system, for a local harvester, mushroom taxonomy serves a different purpose. Mushroom harvesters instead focus on identifying mushrooms based on the local, rather than global, context of mushroom species. This may allow more rapid species identification assessments than could be accomplished using a universal fungi dichotomous key or genetic testing to verify a species' identity. Within a local taxonomic system, it may be important to identify the main traits where organisms exhibit variation and, thereby, may serve as identifying features within a given ecological context. The degree of variation in particular traits within a local context may be a driver of differentiation in folk taxonomies.

Ecological knowledge is also embedded in mushroom nomenclature in Nanhua. Some local ectomycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic relationships with particular plant species, the knowledge of which may be encoded in their local names. For example, tameye is named for its association with a certain local pine species, while semeye is known to be found near a different edible, nut-bearing pine tree species. Mushrooms may also be used as temporal indicator species for the timing of important events. Although not encoded in its name, the species chume (Lactarius sp. or tonglujun) is used by harvesters in Baihua to mark the onset of the mushroom season. As T. matsutake is a highly valuable local non-timber forest product, timing the annual forest harvesting rights auction to align just before the emergence of this species is of critical importance. Some locals have reported that chume emerges starting several weeks before T. matsutake and can be used as a temporal indicator species. If the auction were held too late or too early, this might influence harvesters' incomes and ability to assess the risk of investing in mushroom harvesting in a given year. Additional information about the meaning of local mushroom names may be found in the  Appendix (Supplement.pdf).

Specificity and Generalization

Taxonomic systems are often nested into multiple levels of specificity. In this study, greater taxonomic specificity was documented from directly observing mushroom harvests than in the interviews. For example, in recall-based interviews in Baihua, harvesters reported collecting a local toothed fungus named chiboli. During harvesting observations, the chiboli category was further refined into several distinctly colored varieties, including chibolipewte and chibolinihe. The differentiation between varieties of the same general mushroom type was only documented through observational, rather than recall, data. Without direct observations, chiboli may have been documented as a single mushroom species, rather than as both a species and as a potential folk generic (Berlin 1973).

Another difference between observational and recalled ethnomycological data is illustrated by achimepeiluopai—a purple Russula species—that was frequently observed during harvesting bouts but not mentioned in interviews. This discrepancy highlights a major issue with relying on recall ethnobiological data alone. In interviews, achimepei was frequently named as a commonly collected species. However, the name achimepei commonly refers to both a general category of Russula-like species, as well as to a specific white Lactifluus species. This distinction between multiple species within the multi-level achimepei taxonomic group was not reported during interviews, but rather only documented during harvesting observations.

Morris (2000) notes that the biological category “fungi” among the Chewa people of Malawi only includes edible fungi. By contrast, inedible and poisonous fungi are instead grouped with all other non-utilitarian organisms into a general group of harmful or “useless thing[s]” (Morris 2000: 77). Similarly, in Chiapas, Lampman (2004) found a clear distinction between nomenclature for useful and unusable fungi species, with greater linguistic detail given to useful than non-useful species. He argues that this clear distinction between fungi categories promotes careful identification and safe use of wild mushrooms (Lampman 2004). Yi mushroom taxonomy includes both edible and inedible fungi in the same category, but does distinguish between unique economically valuable species and less distinctive ones. Many harvesters will refer to mushrooms they collect as zajun or miscellaneous mushrooms. In the Nanhua interviews, many harvesters reported this as a catch-all category for the less cognitively salient mushrooms they collect. Distinguishing between named valuable mushrooms (usually T. matsutake and B. edulis) and unnamed non-valuable mushrooms (zajun) highlights the primary importance of wild fungi as an income source in Nanhua.

Many of the most commercially valuable species are commonly referred to in the study communities using their Mandarin names, rather than Yi language names. These species include songrong (T. matsutake), niuganjun (B. edulis), and the many color-changing, or congjun, species. By contrast, some of the less commercially valuable species that are also not usually eaten often lack specific names. These species might be grouped together as zajun or called by general descriptive names such as “little yellow mushrooms” (xiaohuangjun). The latter practice is reminiscent of some North American amateur mycologists' references to LBMs (“little brown mushrooms”) to refer to little brown mushrooms that cannot readily be distinguished from one another. Mushroom names in Nanhua seem to follow a gradient, where those species eaten locally are more likely to have a name in Yi, while those that are more commercially valuable are referred to in Mandarin, and, finally, those that are only moderately valuable and not commonly eaten are grouped into more general categorical names rather than distinguished individually.