(Fly Agaric) Alice in Wonderland Mushroom
We left the house before dawn on Saturday and raced to our King Bolete spot. Competition for the King is quite intense. We managed to beat the hoards and our score was 18-11. I found 11 and my daughter found 18. Before we left we ran into no less then two mushroom clubs in the woods. One had came all the way from the Canadian Border. We left at 11:00 and then went to dinner with my Dad in Tacoma.
On Sunday Afternoon I went for a mini hike at Twana State Park, it's only 3.5 miles but I was pushing a stroller so I got a little bit of a work out. I was hoping to see the salmon spawn at Twana but there were none, I don't know if I am too early or too late.
It was clear that people had been hunting mushrooms at Twana the evidence was everywhere. Toppled buttons, dissected caps and even a pile of Tricholoma focale that someone picked and then dumped out. Maybe they thought they had matsutake? is poison.
I got to look at mushroom spores under a microscope at college last week and I really enjoyed that. I looked at Shrimp Russula and Fat Jacks and they look very different. I'm going to take some more spores in to look at today.
Today I looked at Tricholoma focale, and Chroogomphus vinicolor
under the scope.The Chroogomphus vinicolor spores were much larger 15 microns compared to thee Tricholoma focale that I measured at 2 microns. I don't know if the ruler
was calibrated correctly but you get idea. The Croogomphus
spores were very eliptical while the Tricholoma spores were
very round. As usual blogger is screwing up my formatting.. :(
Tonight I am dining on Shrimp Russula that I picked on campus. I think I have finally figured out how to identify them and they are everywhere!
I was too run down to get up early and go on a real hike this Sunday. My college studies (in statistics) are getting me down and I have my first sinus infection of the season. I'll probably be sick until April now.
Dead Mans Foot
Our Catch of Kings with a few shaggy manes
and men on horseback (Tricholoma flavovirens)
King button
Fly Agaric Button in it's Volva
(Alice in Wonderland Mushroom)
Fly Agric Buttons
Alice in Wonderland Mushrooms
More fly agaric
(Amanita muscaria)
Stropharia from campus
2 comments:
Hi, I'm always interested to read about fungi especially edible ones. There are few indigenous fungi that are known to be safe to eat but the exotic ones have promise. I just eat our common field mushroom though there was a good crop of Birch Boletes on my farm. We have a lot of exotic forestry and rely on fungal associations.
In
Excellent photos. Are the amanitas flash?
Your boletes look delicious!
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