Every reference says green. I say blue. Who are you going to believe?
Them, me or your lying eyes.

Green Stain Fungus – Chlorociboria aeruginascens

This is a tiny stalked mushroom that stains the wood it’s growing in. Field guides state it prefers Oak but I’ve seen it on just about every type of tree (dead and rotting) around here except Cedar and Pine. I’ve been trying for over a year to get a photo of one in profile. Getting a focused photo of the stem always seemed beyond me until the other day. I got lucky and got two.

I wanted the stem shots to help confirm the identity. There are other very close species and this one is supposed to have an off set stem. These look like abstract sculptures to me. I don’t know what might have craved/chewed the holes in them but whatever it was it had to be very small.

I didn’t need any luck finding any of these cup mushrooms, they were all over the place. The rotting logs they were growing on had soaked up plenty of the recent rains giving them the moisture needed to develop the fruiting bodies. Slime molds, particularly yellow fuzz cone slime are out in force too. To get a perspective of the blue stain’s size – the orange balls are about the size of a pin head.

…and now for something not completely different

A Bolete of some sort that’s being eaten. Not all Boletes are edible and I doubt any slug feast is going to make me believe this one is.

A closer look shows just how yummy the whole thing is. It also shows the pore surface and the tubes behind them in the slug eaten hole. (upper left)

Jeeze the last half of this post turned out pretty slimy.

More mushrooms for a fungi Friday.
I’m still trying to catch up with my mushroom finds of the last few days. Here are two more.

Bear’s Head Tooth Mushroom – Hericium americanum

Bear’s head? tooth? – I don’t see a bear’s head no matter how big my beer goggles are. Teeth up the wazoo maybe but why the singular? Maybe it’s the size, these mushroom get pretty big. This one was more than a handful and probably weighted over a pound.

A better common name is Lion’s Mane Mushroom – I can see that without getting half in the bag. Still better would be to call it the Icicle mushroom, but I’m the only one so far that uses that name.

They grow on old hardwood stumps and logs and occasionally from wounds in living trees. This one was growing on an old maple log. They are considered choice eating. The flesh is white and firm but don’t ask me how they taste. Like I’ve said countless times before – I do not put fungus in my mouth.

Yummy looking? Don’t forget to cook it before you take a bite.

Now here’s a mushroom that is aptly named. One look and you can see why.

Eyelash Cup Mushroom – Scutellinia scutellata

These are small orange cups with eyelash like hairs on the cup’s edge. They usually grow in groups on dead wood and sometimes on damp ground. Here’s a pic that gives a bit a scale. They’re smaller than Lincoln’s head on a penny.

eyelash cup fungus

Looking closer you can see the eyelashes. No point in a staring contest – they never blink.

I’ve got more photos of mushrooms on the way. Next time I hope to have some Yellow Fairy Cups to go with the Blue Stain I’m planning to put on the screen. Meanwhile I’m back off to the woods. Right now it’s prime time for mushroom hunting in the North Country of NY.

What do tree ear mushrooms have in common with my ears? If you ask my wife she’ll tell ya they both grow on dead wood and hear about equally.

Tree ear mushrooms have a gelatinous, rubbery texture with little to no taste. (or so I’ve read, I don’t put fungus in my mouth). They’re grown commercially and often used in oriental soups. If you look you can also find dried wood-ear mushrooms for sale on-line. When re-hydrated they regain their gummi-bear texture.

Auricularia auricula

From mushroom

After the recent rain and cool temps I could have harvested a couple of pounds of fresh ears today. They seemed to be everywhere I looked in the old hemlock woods. Even if I did bring some home my wife wouldn’t have put any in today’s soup. She knows better than to trust my mushroom identification skills but I’m pretty certain I got the name of this jelly mushroom correct.

This photo from an old post illustrates the ear shape better than any of the photos I took today.

…and now for a little orange slime

We can all see they’re orange, but the common name for this slime mold is:

Yellow Fuzz Cone Slime – Hemitrichia clavata

From mushroom

About a mile away on another rotting hemlock log they were brown. I would have thunk the orange ones were the younger but the white protoplasmic ooze they from is clearly seen in the second photo. That observation makes me think the brown ones may be younger but it seems the color is more a difference between colonies rather than from age.

I’d like to go back and catch them after they ‘go to seed spore’. That’s when they resemble their common name. Yellowish fuzzy threads burst through the top and it all looks like a tiny ice cream cone gone bad.

From mushroom

These are very tiny, each ball is smaller than the head of a pin. Thank goodness they grow in such numbers. The bright orange ones can be spotted at a fair distance. I had to nearly trip over the log before seeing the brown ones.

…and now a little more fun with slime

Wolf’s Milk or Toothpaste Slime Mold.

Lycogala epidendrum

From mushroom

View more about my favorite log pimple on an old post – Toothpaste Slime Mold.
The photos are much better on that post. I hope you can stomach them.

note: the brown – yellow fuzz cone slime is all over my screen.
I just switched desktop backgrounds