Trumpets and Blewits

in Fungi Lovers3 years ago

I took advantage of a day off to go hike in a new place today. It was typical wooded trails and some mountain bike trails through an oak dominated forest with some nearby cattail marshes. The trees are still holding on to their green leaves for the most part though there was some splashes of autumn color (mostly provided by gratuitous poison ivy).

All the oak trees meant there were tons of Amanita mushrooms around since they are mycorrhizal with the trees. Though I only found 3 species. The most common was Coker's Lavender Staining Amanita (Amanita lavendula) which is the North American 'version' of Amanita citrina, the False Death-Cap.
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The bulbous base with a small residual cup, ring, and pale yellow fragments on a shiny cap are some distinguishing features for Amanita lavendula

The other Amanita species I encountered were Tawny Grisette and the Poison Champagne Amanita.

I also encountered Wolf's Milk (Lycogala epidendrum) for the first time. It is a type of slime mold.
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The pink balls are masses of aggregated plasmodia, individuals gathered together after chemical signaling that it is time to amass and reproduce. A strange slime intelligence.

I found some Surprise Webcaps (Cortinarius semisanguineus) which might be my favorite Cortinarius species. It has an orange top and striking red gills on the underside.

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Then I stumbled across a single trumpet within a depression among some old oaks and moss. Looking around I started to see more and more of them. There were at least a few dozen Black Trumpets scattered at my feet and many more decayed and blackened.

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Black Trumpets (Craterallus fallax) are choice edibles. I snagged a few for later and they are drying currently.
Below is what it was like to look for them. They are expertly camouflaged into the forest floor. How many trumpets can you find in the small area below?
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Hiking farther, I encountered some Tricholoma, Hygrocybe, Birch Polypore, some Hydnum, and lots of Russula and Cortinarius.

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Above is a Hydnum sp. or "Hedgehog" mushroom :)

But something drew me to take a closer look at these mushrooms below. They had a faint purple hue to their caps. This is common for certain Cortinarius species but flipping one of these over I discovered that there was rustiness on the gills and no ring of rust on the stipe either.
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The uniform light purple color make me want to say these are Blewits (Lepista nuda or another Lepista species). I am taking a spore print and if it turns out to have pale spores then I'm calling it a Blewit. Cortinarius would have orange spores.

Blewits are edible but I think I'll pass for today. Maybe next time...

Good hunting and happy #MushroomMonday

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excellent and very enjoyable post. (be careful with Lycogala!.. )

as for the Hydnum sp. -- I suspect you've found a 'yellow hedgehog', Hydnum repandum.

I've heard Black Trumpets are very delicious and have some special taste to them. sady, I dont visit forest in autumn when they appear, and never found them even once.

post is supported by FL acc., and I nominate it for #OCD curation. extra thank you for adding community as a beneficiary. here is an extra - mushroom !PIZZA for you. :D

Thanks! I'll check out Hydnum repandum. What do you mean be careful with Lycogala? Yes I'm curious how Black Trumpets will taste...gotta figure out how I want to use them, should be good though.

be careful with Lycogala, I mean... keep the reasonable distance. not that it is contagious... but i've read some articles, that consider it can have a very negative consequences for human body. not that its simply toxic, no, not that - but there exist a serious fear that this cunning mushroom will be happy to use the human body as a substrate for settlement, there exist scientific versions (on the hypothesis level) that Cancer is due to similar fungi ... may occur. In general, I have informed myself and am "scared", I am sharing information with you so that you, too, were "warned and armed."

Wow beautiful mushroom photo

 3 years ago  

Wow what great finds. Let us know how the spore print turns out. I found Lepista nuda once and did a spore print then ate the cap, it was a really rich mushroom taste like an amplified button mushroom taste.

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Learn more at https://hive.pizza. @qwerrie tipped @funferall (x1)

Beautiful and very informative

This is indeed a trumpet mushroom @funferall just like a trumpet I wish I could found this someday nice Job friend

Thanks! They are very elusive prey ;p

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Grate job @funferall very lovely and interesting post

How beautiful so many types of mushrooms very wonderful to see ;))