Mushroom invasion

[vaneramos]

Rain kept falling and every day we discovered strange new fungi around the cottage. I can't choose the best ones to post, they're all so fascinating. I need to find cheap software that can efficiently set up a gallery, but for now I'm posting the whole collection here. Most of these image were taken on July 30 and 31, and all except the coral fungus were found on our property. In most cases the species identification is uncertain. I have included one peculiar plant at the end of all the fungi.




Amanita flavicona




Coltricia perennis




Boletus badius




Boletus edulis, Amanita sp., Hygrocybe cantharellus




Coltricia perennis, Amanita flavoconia, Lactarius chrysorheus




Boletus subvelutipes




Cerrena unicolor




Marasmius siccus. The photo does not do justice to the lovely pleated look or delicate cream colour of these tiny caps, which are no larger than my baby fingernail. I found two other species on the property, M. rotula and M. cohaerens, but the photos are even less satisfying. Marasmius mushrooms shrivel and practically disappear during dry weather, becoming rejuvenated by rain.




A coral fungus Brenna spotted on one of our walks, but which I neglected to identify (my field guide is still at the cottage).




Monotropa uniflora, a peculiar plant common around the cottage. It has no chlorophyll. It was once believed sacrophagous (living on dead matter), but it actually gets its nourishment through fungal connections between its roots and those of nearby trees. Notice the small, pale moth hovering near the upper lefthand corner of the frame. It was pollinating the flowers the whole time I sat photographing them.

Recent research is revealing that symbiotic relationships between fungi and trees is probably essential to the health of a forest, a factor overlooked by conventional forestry practices.

Comments

[currawong.livejournal.com]

These shots are lovely Van. The boletus made my mouth water.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I was afraid to sample them because the ones I found all had reddish pores, and apparently some such species are poisonous. Unfortunately I didn't find anything that was unambiguously edible. It was nowhere near as rewarding as one October a few years ago when I found a dead tree blossoming with my favourite, oyster mushrooms. I ate to my heart's content that day.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

We don't get too many really poisonous funghi here, I have never seen a fly-agaric for instance. We do however get the Destroying Angel, amanita phalloides sometimes. We also get the wildly hallucinatory blue meanies and gold-caps, psilocybe cubensis to the north of here. We also occassionly get in our garden two large, beautiful mushrooms....one pale yellow and the other lilac-blue. I haven't identified them yet.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I finally bought a field guide last year, and this is the first summer I have taken much time to bother identifying them. I've been seeing them for years, but I hardly realized how many different species we had around. It's a lot of fun, and I do hope to gain some knowledge of the edible ones to diversify my cottage diet.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

I need a guide too. I was very taken with the indian-pipes.

[progbear.livejournal.com]

I love the little frosty green plants appearing around the Boletus badius specimen. They look like tiny, spiky horsetails. Any idea what they are really?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

We have many species of moss around the cottage, too, and this is one of them. I had assumed it was fire moss, Ceratodon purpureus, one of the most common plant on earth, but it might be a Polytrichium species. I need to take a closer look next time.

[progbear.livejournal.com]

Aha! I thought from the looks of it, it must be some sort of spore-bearing plant (and not some kind of weird herbal conifer), as it looks very much like the kinds of horsetails (http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/progbear/detail?.dir=/2b67&.dnm=9809.jpg) we have round these parts (but littler and spikier).

Funny story: on the campus of the college I used to attend, some horsetails seemed to escape cultivation from the greenhouse in the biology lab, and grew all along the little wooded creek. Every winter, the gardeners would mow them down...and every year they'd come back with double the strength. They didn't seem to understand that every time you mow them down, they scatter spores everywhere.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

For scale, the mushroom in that image was about 3 inches tall.

I often see horsetails around here, too, in fact we had a lot of them on our property (home, not the cottage) when I was growing up. They grew right through the thick layer of gravel Dad dumped to make a path. They have all vanished now, giving way to other wet-loving plants like Impatiens (jewelweed).

[perkk.livejournal.com]

I've always been facinated with mushrooms in the wild, but I haven't learned to identify hardly another other than Morels. It's a tacky question I know, but are any of those varieties edible?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

All the Boletus mushrooms are probably edible, but I'm inexperienced at identification and the genus does include some poisonous species, so I was hesitant to experiment. Some coral fungi are edible, too.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Conventional Wisdom says that experimenting with wild mushrooms should be left to experts, or at least one should spend some time learning about individual species before experimenting.

I take it the Hygrocybe cantharellus is not our friend the chanterelle?

[aa-bronson.livejournal.com]

I often am in Basel, Switzerland, in June each year, and there is a man sitting at a table in the farmer's market who just sorts mushrooms. People bring him the mushrooms they have picked in the wild and he sorts them into two piles: edible, and inedible

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

What a useful service. I would love to take an expert to my cottage, or failing that, take a course on this subject. Mushrooms are one of my favourite foods, but I'm reluctant to try wild ones without more guidance.

[aa-bronson.livejournal.com]

Don't you wish there was some one like that at the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto? (Is there a farmer's market in Guelph? Or Ambridge, sorry I've lost track of your location!)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I'm lucky if I visit St. Lawrence Market twice a year. Guelph has a good but small farmer's market. It is nowhere near the scale of the famous markets in St. Jacobs and Stouffville, and offers nothing like a mushroom specialist.

[aa-bronson.livejournal.com]

(sigh)--a mushroom specialist! Our heart's desire!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

No, the common name was something like chantarelle yellow-cap, however I didn't writen the common names in my notebook.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Hmm... well, I guessed from both the name and the appearance that it was at least related to the chanterelle of haute cuisine, but I assumed that if it was the same beast you'd have said so.

[ubermunkey.livejournal.com]

great stuff here. ah fungi.
that top one looks really great, super color and super shot.

when in oregon i took up hunting in the forest. awesome stuff. i only got to go a couple of times but man it was great.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Those yellow Amanitas were quite numerous, but I had to hunt for such a shapely one.

I do love the forest and lake even more than my Eramosa River. I'm never so peaceful as when I'm off in the wilderness rambling.