Quite a Year for Mushrooms (Fungi - Part 1)

 August, and especially September, have provided us with an unusual number of fungi. I took photos of over 50 different species, but haven't been able to identify most of them - I'm no fungus expert!

This post features gilled mushrooms. The next one covers everything else.

I'll start with one of the most spectacular mushrooms in the woods, the Jack O' Lantern Mushroom (Omphalotus illudens). Over the years, I've probably photographed this fungus more than any other.

The large orange clusters are real attention-getters. I've tried, but I've never been able to see the bioluminescence that accounts for the name.

The "Death Angel" or "Destroying Angel" mushroom (Amanita virosa) is one to know (and avoid!). It is among the most poisonous mushrooms.

It starts out as a small rounded knob.

The Parasol Mushroom (Macrolepiota procera) is common in the grass near our house. I pulled another one from the grass just outside our house to take a closer look (and a spore print). (Left photo from 2005.)

A closer look at the cap.

The underside of the cap. The ring on the stalk is actually free of the stalk and can be moved up and down.

When the Parasol Mushroom first emerges, it looks like a tympani ("kettledrum") stick. (2006 photo)

Black Trumpets (Craterellus fallax) are relatively common, but so well camouflaged that they are rarely seen. Most of the time I've seen them, I've been crawling around on the forest floor during the Field Ecology Governor's School forest studies (scroll down to the bottom of the link).

A look down the "trumpet". Despite their alternative name of "Trumpets of Death", they are edible. (But I haven't tried!)

Golden trumpets (Xeromphalina kauffmanii - growing on hardwood) have a similar shape, but are easier to see.

Not quite a "trumpet", the bright orange Cinnabar Chanterelle (Cantharellus cinnabarinus) also have a funnel shape.

I have far more unidentified mushroom pictures than I have identified ones. Here are some of the more interesting.

This emerging 'shroom looks like it belongs on a chess board.

This mushroom has very spiky warts on its cap.

I've photographed this red-yellow mushroom for years, but have never identified it.

The penny shows how small these mushrooms are.

And finally, a mushroom movie from 2012.

Inky Cap mushroom dripping (30 sec time-lapse). The mushrooms appear and "dissolve" in one day. I'm not quite sure which Coprinus species this is.