Mycology

Growing on a tree in my back yard

Found my first lobsters the other day, I thought they were rocks spray-painted by forestry workers. We cooked the best one up with a little butter until slightly crisp on the outside. Honestly, I'm not sure why these are so highly regarded. The texture was similar to styrofoam, kind of mealy, not that different from Russula and the flavour was lacking. I'd still like to try them again, maybe it was just a subpar lobster.

So, after years of searching for chanterelles, I rock up to this massive flush of yellow mushrooms and thought oh, probably not but I better just check if chanterelles. As I got closer they looked more and more like chanterelles. I actually almost walked away from them because I didn't want to be disappointed again and they were not growing where I expected them to be, in a very dry spot out in the open, packed into gravel.

I was convinced these didn't grow in my area. I still haven't seen them in my immediate area but it does tend to be a lot drier than the surrounding areas. We picked maybe 3 lbs or more. All the trimmings were dropped in my usual spots with similar tree species to where I found them, just in case they had spores attached or had the urge to clone themselves. I don't usually put much stock in the whole 'use a net bag, you'll disperse more spores' thing but idk, can't hurt.

Anyways, I'm a happy hunter.

Called the "Dyer's Polypore" because people use it to make fabric dyes which sounds like another hobby I don't have time for. The PNW version turned out to be a distinct species from the European Phaoleus schweinitzii which is the name field guides have been using for decades.

This is softer than most polypores, I was surprised how easily a chunk came off.

Here's the same piece a few hours later after the stains where I touched the pores have fully darkened.

Magnified! The pores are pretty unusual, shallow and angular.

Info: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/summer-continental-mycoblitz-2025

Love to participate in these types of events, I find they really help me focus on my observation skills and they're a neat way to get involved with sequencing if you have no idea where to start.

Came across a nice patch when I was walking my dog in the woods .

I gave a talk on outdoor mushroom cultivation this spring and gave everyone wine cap spawn to inoculate their gardens. Had an extra bag and was able to do a bed of my own. I was really impressed with how vigorous the mycelium was compared to growing other oyster species outdoors.

I will say these had a really strong flavour that was not my favorite. I left them longer than I wanted to so I could get a spore print to show my mushroom club so could have been better had I picked them younger

And some non fungi things

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/25279811

Found this one in the woods behind my house. One of my favorite mushrooms to find even though there's not much to do with it, it's beautiful just to look at!

The blue "milk" contains latex, so don't handle if you're allergic. It's related to regular milk caps and looks identical aside from the brilliant color.

Something that you don't often see in field guides: it smells quite sweet in addition to the usual earthiness.

I will be returning it to the forest floor to drop its spores in hopes I keep finding them.

One of the more interesting mushrooms that grows near me. The orange color comes from a parasitic ascomycete fungus that grows on the host mushroom. This guy is edible, but I was trail riding so I didn't harvest.

どく・どく・もり・もり

Doku Doku Mori Mori

Poison Poison Forest Forest

by Segawa Noboru

An English scanlation is available on Mangadex.

Warning: despite the cute character designs, this is a gruesome, violent series. Read at your own discretion.

So I found a nice big flush of these guys and assumed R. brevipes even if it is a bit early for those in my area. I made a cut on the gills just to check if it was lactarius, this photo was after about 1-2mins of waiting for it to bleed. Uploading to iNat I always check my assumptions against the algorithm and it's top suggestion was Lactarius controversus - blushing milkcap. Now that I am looking at it the gills do have a rosy look to them. I couldn't find much info on how quickly L. controversus starts to bleed but maybe I didn't wait long enough. There was no zonation on the cap. Found under pine/spruce/fir/poplar growing closely scattered but fouund them in also a group of about 4-5. Northern interior of BC, Canada.

I'm pretty sure this is R. brevipes but would love feedback because I'm pretty inexperienced with ID and L. controversus wasn't even on my radar before uploading to iNat.

These don't blue like others I've had pop up.

These are definitely my favourite homegrown mushroom to eat but my least favourite to grow (I just find them a little finicky). Not sure if this qualifies as a rosecomb mutation, but I did have actual rosecomb growth on subsequent fruiting from the same culture.

Cyclocybe aegerita

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/30676397

A cute little Suillus bovinus (probably) grew with my COVID-time seed planted tree

I knew there was a lot of mushrooms in the woods, but I did not expect to fill the basket! Found one spot in particular that filled 1/3 of the basket, it never ended.