Thursday, October 19, 2006

Oregon mushrooms

While in Oregon, we went on a great walk through the woods near Susan's house. I was on the lookout for mushrooms, but as usual A saw all of them before me! :)

We found three "interesting" ones that I took back home to identify.

The first was Coprinus Comatus (Shaggy Mane) - there were dozens of the tall, white, unopened mushrooms along the path we were hiking on, and many older mushrooms that had started disintegrating. At first I thought these were two different mushrooms, but it was soon clear that the black, inky ones were the "grown-up" versions of the white ones. Identification once I got home was quite easy, and now I think I'll be able to spot these without any problems.
Apparently they're good eating too, used in soups and stews.

The next was a bolete with a viscid (slimy) cap and yellow-green pores. At home I set it up to get spore prints overnight, and found brown spores. Identifying this one was a bit more tricky, and I'm still not 100% sure, but it seems to be a Suillus caerulescens.

The last was a gilled mushroom, slightly viscid when wet, with a tan-brown cap and white stipe, and yellow-brown gills. Small dark-brown hairs on the cap, which was darker in the center and became tan on towards the edge. Spore print was creamy-white. The stip was hollow and filled with a fluffy white material. There were the remnants of a partial veil present, but not a large, frilly annulus. This seems to be a Armillariella mellea (Honey Mushroom), although the annulus and cap in pictures look a little different.

1 comment:

Joy to the World said...

What can I say... It's a gift :)