The Indiana Jones of mushrooms

Part farm, part scientific laboratory, the Sebastopol-based company Gourmet Mushrooms is anything but boring. That suits owner Malcolm Clark just fine. Nicknamed the "Indiana Jones of Mushrooms," Malcolm is a mushroom hunter, always looking for the next great fungi to be found and cultivated.

"I get a kick out of the whole Indiana Jones thing. I'll go into a store and people will say, 'Oh, there goes Indie, or 'There goes the mushroom man,'" Clark said.

While the title may be a hard one to live up to, it's not without merit and it may be one of the reasons his company has ballooned from a two-man operation to the largest exotic mushroom farm in the country. When they started out 24 years ago, the only mushroom they knew how to grow was shiitake. Today, they cultivate more than 28 different varieties of fungi for both culinary and medicinal purposes.

"It's fun to be able to pioneer a new agricultural industry. It's always exciting to be the first," Clark said. "I can't imagine doing anything else in life."

For more information, visit www.gourmetmushroomsinc.com.