Tag: mushrooms

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Mushrooms (Part 6)

These are not mushrooms from Easement Acres, but they’re new ones to catalog nonetheless, as I’ve never personally encountered them growing before. They were instead located during a hike at the local Sugarcreek Metropark:

Chicken of the woods (Laetiporus species).

Chicken of the woods are a favorite of my Dad’s. He always forages any he finds and vacuum seals them for later. They are delicious, but these ones looked a little old and tough, so I did not take them this time.

Chickens Don’t Live in the Woods

On the more poisonous side of things, here’s another cool, albeit inedible, find:

Jack-o’-lantern mushrooms (Omphalotus illudens)

Their coolness lies in their brilliant color and giant size. And look at that giant slug. Eww. The kid found these ones bushwhacking off-trail.

Kid on a deathmarch

And that’s it. Just a boring post about mushrooms on a hike. Nothing of major note, for which I was happy to have an uneventful weekend.

–Simon

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Rainy Nature

Things happen outside when it rains constantly. Mushrooms grow. Bugs multiply. Things rot and decay. Nature reclaims. It’s gross out there. Here are some examples:

The new mosquito bucket, which appears to have attracted its intended victims.
A large praying mantis. Bugs that eat other bugs are generally okay with me.
Another another, which landed on this rock the kid etched.
Mutinus elegans. More freaky mushrooms.

Stay dry.

–Simon

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Mushrooms (Part 5)

AI does not like to identify mushrooms. Mushrooms are difficult to identify, so I get it, but I’m also a 90s kid who saw playground equipment removed from schools and warning labels applied to coffee cups. I suspect that AI could give a probable identification, but doesn’t want the responsibility of someone poisoning themself if the identification were incorrect. So alas, despite my curiosity with this kingdom of lifeforms, I can’t fully catalog them.

But I can photograph them! Here’s some more from Easement Acres:

Hopus lionus (I hope this is the Lion’s Man I inoculated into this stump earlier this year).
Schizophyllum commune?
I know this one, because I seeded it! Stropharia rugosoannulata
Galerina marginata? AKA Funeral Bell. Might be Desarmillaria tabescens, but I’m not going to try eating them.
Some form of Crepidotus

Lots of rain bringeth lots of mushrooms. Don’t eat them, or at least don’t blame AI if you do and die.

–Simon

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Mushrooms (Part 4)

In what appears to be a mushroom theme as of late, here’s a newcomer I haven’t seen before. AI has made identification significantly easier now, taking some of the fun out of the search. Can’t stop what’s coming, I suppose.

Anyway:

Peziza vesiculosa

They grow in nutrient-rich mediums, such as this layer of mulch.

They’re also apparently inedible. Oh well.

–Simon

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Wine Cap (Pt. 2)

I assumed these would come back, judging from the quantity of embedded mycelium that remains in the straw. And they did.

Wine Cap

I did not, however, harvest them. I should have, to give to my dad, but I didn’t get around to it. Oh well. Still neat to look at. If not palatable, they’re still aesthetic, and it’s an interesting concept to consider that I now have a multi-year self-sustaining mushroom colony, provided I keep feeding it wood and straw. I’m still holding out of the blue oysters!

Blue Oyster

–Simon