Rhode Island is home to between 2,300 and 2,500 species of fungi, says Noel Rowe, leader of a mushroom walk organized by the Rhode Island Wild Plant Society this week. Twenty-nine mushroom hunters traipsed through the woods of the Nettie Marie Jones Nature Preserve with Rowe searching for as many species as they could gather for identification.

In less than two hours, they found dozens of species in the West Greenwich woods.

Some people on the walk were interested in the botany of fungi, others in the flavor.

Whenever Rowe found a new mushroom, inevitably someone would ask whether it was edible.

Inevitably, Rowe's answer went something like this: "If you're not absolutely certain what you've found, do not eat it."

What if you see a squirrel eating a mushroom with no ill effects?

Then it's not poisonous to squirrels, Rowe would answer.

He also warned against eating any uncooked mushroom, including supermarket varieties. And, he said, drinking alcohol while eating some mushrooms makes them toxic.

Among the easiest of the local mushrooms to identify, he said, are the hen of the woods, also known by a variety of Italian names, and chicken of the woods, also called sulfur shelf.

The wild plant society offers walks and talks throughout the year. The schedule is posted on the group's web site, www.riwps.org.

No rules for ducks

Rhode Island's three-way split season for waterfowl begins Oct. 10, and the season for snow geese and sea ducks opens Oct. 11.

Due to the state government's fiscal crisis, the Department of Environmental Management will not be printing hard copies of the 2008-09 waterfowl regulations this year. So Rhode Island's waterfowl-hunting abstracts, which include bag limits and season dates, will not be available at licensed vendors or town halls this year.

The regulations are available for downloading from the DEM web site, www.dem.ri.gov, by clicking on Regulations from the homepage, then Fish & Wildlife, then 2008-2009 Waterfowl Abstract.

A hunter who has paid for state and federal permits but who has no computer will have to go to a public library to view and print a copy of the regulations. "Hunters are responsible for being familiar with and abiding by regulations while hunting," according to a DEM press release.

Besides having to purchase a hunting license, waterfowl hunters must also buy a state duck stamp and a federal duck stamp. A state-issued "harvest information program" card -- also necessary -- is free.

Dates of the waterfowl hunting three-way split are Oct. 10 to Oct. 13, Nov. 26 to Nov. 30, and Dec. 6 to Jan. 25, 2009.

Flies for lights

Tom Daniels and fly-fishing instructor Ed Lombardo are offering a fly-fishing program at Addieville East Farm on Oct. 4 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Proceeds from the event will benefit Smithfield High School's "Friday Night Lights" fund project. For the first time in the school's history, it has lights for outdoor games.

The program will include casting, entomology, lunch and an afternoon of fishing on the farm's private pond.

The cost is $50. For more information and to register, call 233-2602.

Nutritious, delicious

Autumn olives, some of nature's most delicious berries, are beginning to ripen.

Besides tasting great, they contain 18 times more lycopene than tomatoes, according to Russ Cohen, the Massachusetts author of "Wild Plants I Have Known and Eaten." Lycopene may help prevent prostate and other forms of cancer.

When Cohen leads foraging walks, he generally serves everyone sheets of "fruit leather" that he makes by dehydrating autumn-olive pulp. To get to pulp, simmer the berries until they are soft, and squash them in a food mill to eliminate seeds and skin.

The pulp also may be used as syrup, in jam or in a reduction to pour over wild game.

Autumn olives are everywhere. The New England Wild Flower Society has included autumn olives in its Rogues Gallery of alien invasive plants. They have silvery leaves, and the bright red berries are flecked with silver.

They are similar to Russian olives -- same genus but a different species -- but autumn olives taste better. Autumn olives are unusual in how they ripen, however. You may find two plants, side by side, and the berries on one will be wonderfully sweet, while the berries on the plant next door will be extremely tart. In the Carolina Management Area, autumn olives seem to sweeten with the first frost of autumn.

Cohen recommends tasting while picking autumn olives, and he likes to blend sweet berries with tart ones for his fruit leather.

Generally they are ready to pick from late September well into November.