"ANGWIN, Calif. — Jessica Allen crunched through fallen leaves among Manzanita trees hunting for something few have spotted before: the Manzanita butter clump — a rare and little-known yellow mushroom found, so far, only along North America’s Western coastlines.

It was last seen here in California’s Napa County two years ago, and Allen, a fungi scientist, was keen to find it. But within minutes, something caught her attention. She knelt, pulled a hand lens to her eye, and peered nose-close into a rock: lichens — a type of fungi — bursting with dazzling shapes, textures and colors.

“It’s so easy to get distracted, but there’s so many lichen!” she said excitedly.

“That was a good rock,” said ecologist Jesse Miller, president of the California Lichen Society.

“Ok, let’s go find some mushrooms,” she exclaimed."

Dorany Pineda reports for the Associated Press February 17, 2026. [2]