Unearthing SA’s fungal secrets — meet the mycologists marking a new era for mushroom exploration

Mycologists Justin and Breyten, photo credit Jo Munnik

2 Mar 2025

The Western Cape, renowned for its breathtaking landscapes and biodiversity, is also home to a fascinating and diverse array of mushrooms. The region’s unique combination of introduced vegetation, such as pine, oak and poplar trees, alongside indigenous fynbos and semi-arid scrubland, creates an ideal environment for a wide variety of species. Right beneath our very feet is a world of fungal secrets waiting to be discovered. And local mycologists Justin Williams and Breyten van der Merwe are on a quest to unearth it.

An entangled life

Separated by under 100km, and just more than a decade in age, Justin Williams (38) and Breyten van der Merwe’s (25) introduction to mushrooms were not that different – their childhoods were spent exploring their natural environments which included foraging for mushrooms. While Breyten foraged with caution, for fear of ingesting potentially poisonous mushrooms, Justin lapped it all up and found the risks exhilarating.

“At age 10 my dad and I went for our first very unsuccessful mushroom hunt, and we didn’t get poisoned because we didn’t eat what we found. That episode really started piquing my curiosity in mushrooms, and over time my interest just grew and grew and grew.”

Today, Justin is a renowned mycologist, author and a foraging educator and facilitator, hosting workshops in collaboration with Veld & Sea (none of which is his 9 to 5.)

But it wasn’t until 2020 that Justin and Breyten met, on Instagram. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Justin noticed a considerable uptick in the public’s interest in mycology with more and more people sharing their experiences on social media – Breyten being one of them.

After months of following and being inspired by Justin’s Instagram page (which is admittedly a feast of fungi and fragrance), Breyten made a remarkable discovery that gave him the perfect excuse to reach out.

“In lockdown, I kind of got more into it. (I) found my first morel (mushroom). We sequenced it – turns out it was an undescribed species. It was the start of a friendship with Justin.”

Breyten uses “undescribed” instead of “undiscovered”, as he explains:

“I like to say described, not discovered because a lot of these mushrooms we are finding out do have a lot of history and traditional use by all kinds of people.”

Breyten is a molecular biology and biotech graduate, currently doing his master’s in chemical engineering at Stellenbosch University, where he spends much of his time bioprospecting different mushrooms – from psychedelics to oyster mushrooms.

“(Some) of what I do is feed mushrooms to cancer cells to see if they can kill them.”

Spoiler alert: they don’t, yet. But a lot of his work does entail testing the genomes and genetics of fungi. And Justin was in need of these highly specialised skills to identify a mysterious choice edible (extremely desirable and highly sought after in mycology terms) mushroom species he had been introduced to years before in the Overstrand region.

A brilliant symbiotic relationship was formed and together they have made significant scientific contributions to the underresearched world of African macrofungi.

Morchella capensis 1 (fynbos morel). (Photo: Justin Williams)

The discovery of the Overstrand oyster

In the quiet coastal town of Gansbaai, a local forager stumbled upon an unusual mushroom sprouting in large numbers on the dunes between herbaceous plants. To his delight, they were not only edible, but tasted great.

He believed them to be Omajova mushrooms (Termitomyces schimperi), but Justin, who heard about them through a friend, was doubtful. To his knowledge, Omajova mushrooms only grow in Limpopo and Namibia. So he went to check them out.

“Where they were growing was in large ring-like formations. I knew instantly they were not Omajova mushrooms. We cooked enough together. It was delicious. We lived to tell the tale.”

What they were exactly was a mystery, so Justin sent samples to a local mycologist in 2017 to be identified who confirmed that they were a new species but couldn’t tell him more than that.

A few years later he showed them to Breyten who suspected that this was something new entirely within the oyster mushroom family. Equipped with more sophisticated ways of testing the genomes, Justin returned with Breyten to collect samples in the hope that this could lead to a new species being described – a rare event in African mycology.

Breyten confirmed their suspicions: it was indeed a distinct species of oyster mushroom, endemic to South Africa. “It’s a brand-new type of oyster mushroom,” Justin told Daily Maverick.

In 2024, Justin and Breyten published a scientific paper introducing Pleurotus Overstrandensis, or more commonly the Overstrand oyster, to the world, detailing its fascinating traits – its closest genetic neighbour is found in Tasmania, Australia and New Zealand, it has potentially medicinal properties and it’s carnivorous.

There is a lot more research needed to determine the full extent of its medicinal and nutritional potential, as Breyten explains:

“The more we know about them, the more we can figure out what’s in them and what kind of compounds they produce that can help humans.”

For Justin there is an added bonus to this finding:

“A lot of people and foragers ask me: are there any indigenous edible mushrooms to forage? And this is pretty much right near the top of the list in terms of the Western Cape. This mushroom might have been eaten by a lot of people’s ancestors here in the Western Cape, but that knowledge is long gone. I think the exciting part for me is, can we commercially grow this mushroom as a unique heritage food? We’re on the tip of the iceberg.”

An oyster mushroom on display at Stellenbosch University. (Photo: Jo Munnik)

mushrooms Justin Williams holds a Morchella capensis (fynbos morel). (Photo: Beverley Williams)

Secrets of the fynbos: The elusive morel

Justin grew up obsessed with natural history, devouring books by naturalists. From them he learnt about the Cape morel, a small, vertically growing mushroom with a wavy, textured cap that was allegedly indigenous to Cape Town’s Southern Peninsula, where Justin grew up. But he had never seen one and spent two years searching for them. Morels are considered one of the tastiest mushrooms on Earth and go well with everything from pasta to risotto.

In 2015, he was on the verge of giving up on his investigation when he had an idea:

“I was certain that morels did grow in Cape Town, but was just unable to find any. So I wrote to the Cape Times at the time and one guy replied to me, only one. And his name was Arthur van Staden. And he said to me, yes, I know these mushrooms. Well, we used to pick them around Red Hill, where he was originally from.”

Van Staden was born in 1956 in Red Hill Village, above Simon’s Town, before he and his family were forcibly removed to Ocean View under apartheid’s Group Areas Act.

During a 2023 interview with Justin and Breyten, Arthur recounted how his father shared “a great secret of the coloured people” during his childhood, taking him into the veld to teach him how to harvest morel mushrooms (which he called “pappallelaskos”). Though sworn to secrecy by his father, Arthur happily shared this knowledge with Justin, who finally discovered the morel mushroom he’d been searching for, growing perfectly within the fynbos.

Breyten wondered if there could be more foragers like Arthur, which spurred Justin to get in touch with the Simon’s Town Museum, which connected him with another former Red Hill resident, George Lawrence. Like Arthur, George was a seasoned morel hunter, whose knowledge had been passed down generations to his parents who passed it on to him.

“There’s a strong legacy that goes with these mushrooms and the strong heritage that the original inhabitants of Red Hill feel very proud about.”

Breyten and Justin foraging for fynbos morel. (Photo: Jo Munnik)

And this ancestral knowledge, as Justin explains, turned out to be the key to another breakthrough: while morels have been known to grow in Cape Town for more than 100 years, it has now been established that this morel is an entirely different species. And as Justin told Daily Maverick, this is the first choice edible mushroom that appears to be growing symbiotically with a protea (Leucadendron).

“We could see that the mycelium was actually embedded into the roots of these proteas, feeding each other.”

However, further studies are needed to determine the extent of this relationship.

This newly described morel has been called the “fynbos morel” (Morchella capensis), the first description of an endemic Morchella species from Africa. And along with Justin and Breyten, both Arthur and George have been named as co-authors on this paper, which has just been published.

It is Justin’s hope that this paper will also contribute to the conservation of the fynbos morel – which is located in areas facing rapid urbanisation which could threaten the range of these mushrooms in the very near future.

Mycologists Justin Williams (left) and Breyten van der Merwe. (Photo: Jo Munnik)

“It’s adding colour to the picture of how diverse mushroom hunting can be in the Western Cape. Driving a lot more people into nature and wanting to start foraging and empower themselves by finding food. I really hope that conservation is top of mind for anybody who comes across them.”

These discoveries hold considerable meaning – beyond highlighting the region’s potential as a hub for fungal research and exploration. It also tells us about our land, our history, our ancestry and our shared heritage. The mycelium offers clues to who we are, how we got here and the intricate web of life that binds us to each other and to the natural world.

For Justin, this marks a new era for mushroom exploration, especially when academics like Breyten and naturalists like himself come together.

“I hope it spurs more interest in mycology so that even more discoveries are made in the future by people like you and me. Citizen science has never been more alive, which is a really wonderful thing. I never went to university myself. The fact that somebody like me who couldn’t afford to go to university can play a part in discoveries like this, just goes to show that you don’t need to be an academic genius to do it. I hope it has a knock-on effect with future generations that could lead to greater discoveries lying around the corner.” DM

Jo Munnik is a renowned South African documentary filmmaker, journalist and photographer. With a career spanning two decades, she has worked across Africa – from 33 degrees South to 33 North, with a whole lot of east and west in between – collaborating with renowned organisations such as National Geographic, BBC, CNN and Vice News.

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South Africa

An entangled life

The discovery of the Overstrand oyster

Secrets of the fynbos: The elusive morel