More Nature Post! I love mushrooms!
This will be probably the last nature post I do from Photobucket. Since I already have a paid account there, it will not wreck all my links (supposedly) until January 2018, so people will have plenty of time to look at this one before it disappears, and before then I'll have found a new solution for image hosting.
Anyway...
LOTS of mushrooms, and most exciting, one of them was not only edible but was eaten by me! No matter how much I love mushrooms I have never trusted myself to identify edible ones, but this is one you cannot possibly mis-identify; it has no poisonous look-alikes. And HOLY SHIT IS IT GOOD!
Onward...
This isn't mushrooms, but it's pretty crazy... this old dead tree had a hornet nest underneath it. Hornet nests don't have honey in them but they do have lots and lots of fat little hornet grubs. And there's only one thing around here with the strength to rip out chunks of tree root like this and the temper to tolerate that many hornet stings...
Hornet nests actually make up a significant part of a black bear's diet... they wait till midsummer when the nests are full of grubs, and then they rip them as fast as they can till they get to the brood chambers, grab as much food as they can, and run. They don't like the stings, but they like all the fat and protein they get from the grubs.
Cute little russula that has been munched on quite a bit...
Ganoderma applanatum, the artist's conk. It goes by that name because the white layer on the underside stains brown when you scrape or scratch it, and you can actually draw or write on it.
They would normally be all white underneath, but these ones have bugs living in them, and they've been dissolving some of the mushroom flesh into a black goo.
There aren't that many green mushrooms, but this one is definitely green. It's probably Russula aeruginea, also known as, surprisingly, green russula. They are reported to be edible. I am not interested, partly because I'm not sure that's what it is, and partly because something is already eating it.
Underside of said russula... no ring around the stem and no cup at the base, so it's not one of the greenish-tinted amanitas.
Probably also either Russula or Lactarius (milk mushrooms).
This is the strange flat place where the beaver dam used to have a lake. Now it's a muddy, random terrain cut through with little streams and unexpected pools and lots and lots of...
... these delightful things.
Yellow coral fungus, probably Clavulinopsis laeticolor.
A particularly stunning little specimen! How pretty!
Boletes! Identifying them is very tricky, and often it comes down to spore color or what color they stain when bruised, but I like all of them.
This adorable little bolete doesn't look like a sponge on the underside because its spores aren't mature or ready for dispersal yet.
This is a mature bolete (very mature, from the number of bugs living in it), and the pores are wide open to disperse spores.
Just more little russula posing for pictures...
And a yellow something-or-other that has, as usual, been munched on.
One of the former beaver pond's unexpected little pools. It is full of very large tadpoles that will soon be very large bullfrogs.
Came upon another deer skeleton down there. Can't tell if this one died and ended up in the water or what, but I don't see any indications that it was one of my husband's or his nephews' hunting season prizes.
Gorgeous, gorgeous coral mushrooms!
The slugs' work on this one is almost artistic...
I'd call this "three generations" except that they are all just fruiting bodies from the same parent fungus. But it's still cool.
"Youngest" sibling.
"Middle" sibling.
Yummy... slime mold! These are not actually molds because they are not actually fungi... they are part of their own very weird group that does very weird things, including switching between single-celled and forming gregarious fruiting bodies like this.
AND THE AWESOME!
Chicken of the woods! Laetiporus sulphreus, the sulfur shelf. It is a prized edible mushroom, one I almost never find because someone else has already found it first. It is a tree rotting fungus native to eastern North America.
Not a very big one... they get HUGE... but it's fresh and young, which means it's still soft and there are no bugs in it yet. If I'd left it to grow a few more days, someone else would've found it!
Sitting in my car on the way home...
I sliced it up in thin slices and fried it in butter and it was
SO
INCREDIBLY
GOOD
OH MY GOD
It tastes NOTHING like a plain old mushroom. It's almost meaty, savory, intense... astounding. I shared some with Hipster Scott at work, and he said it "blew his mind"! SO GOOD. I had no idea it would be that good. I am now obsessed with finding more of it... except it's pure luck, unless you know where you've found it before. I WANT MORE.
Anyway...
Oh, and cats.
Bubba Kit, the King of Everything
And Loki, the pretty cross-eyed princess
And that will be all.
.
.
Anyway...
LOTS of mushrooms, and most exciting, one of them was not only edible but was eaten by me! No matter how much I love mushrooms I have never trusted myself to identify edible ones, but this is one you cannot possibly mis-identify; it has no poisonous look-alikes. And HOLY SHIT IS IT GOOD!
Onward...
This isn't mushrooms, but it's pretty crazy... this old dead tree had a hornet nest underneath it. Hornet nests don't have honey in them but they do have lots and lots of fat little hornet grubs. And there's only one thing around here with the strength to rip out chunks of tree root like this and the temper to tolerate that many hornet stings...
Hornet nests actually make up a significant part of a black bear's diet... they wait till midsummer when the nests are full of grubs, and then they rip them as fast as they can till they get to the brood chambers, grab as much food as they can, and run. They don't like the stings, but they like all the fat and protein they get from the grubs.
Cute little russula that has been munched on quite a bit...
Ganoderma applanatum, the artist's conk. It goes by that name because the white layer on the underside stains brown when you scrape or scratch it, and you can actually draw or write on it.
They would normally be all white underneath, but these ones have bugs living in them, and they've been dissolving some of the mushroom flesh into a black goo.
There aren't that many green mushrooms, but this one is definitely green. It's probably Russula aeruginea, also known as, surprisingly, green russula. They are reported to be edible. I am not interested, partly because I'm not sure that's what it is, and partly because something is already eating it.
Underside of said russula... no ring around the stem and no cup at the base, so it's not one of the greenish-tinted amanitas.
Probably also either Russula or Lactarius (milk mushrooms).
This is the strange flat place where the beaver dam used to have a lake. Now it's a muddy, random terrain cut through with little streams and unexpected pools and lots and lots of...
... these delightful things.
Yellow coral fungus, probably Clavulinopsis laeticolor.
A particularly stunning little specimen! How pretty!
Boletes! Identifying them is very tricky, and often it comes down to spore color or what color they stain when bruised, but I like all of them.
This adorable little bolete doesn't look like a sponge on the underside because its spores aren't mature or ready for dispersal yet.
This is a mature bolete (very mature, from the number of bugs living in it), and the pores are wide open to disperse spores.
Just more little russula posing for pictures...
And a yellow something-or-other that has, as usual, been munched on.
One of the former beaver pond's unexpected little pools. It is full of very large tadpoles that will soon be very large bullfrogs.
Came upon another deer skeleton down there. Can't tell if this one died and ended up in the water or what, but I don't see any indications that it was one of my husband's or his nephews' hunting season prizes.
Gorgeous, gorgeous coral mushrooms!
The slugs' work on this one is almost artistic...
I'd call this "three generations" except that they are all just fruiting bodies from the same parent fungus. But it's still cool.
"Youngest" sibling.
"Middle" sibling.
Yummy... slime mold! These are not actually molds because they are not actually fungi... they are part of their own very weird group that does very weird things, including switching between single-celled and forming gregarious fruiting bodies like this.
AND THE AWESOME!
Chicken of the woods! Laetiporus sulphreus, the sulfur shelf. It is a prized edible mushroom, one I almost never find because someone else has already found it first. It is a tree rotting fungus native to eastern North America.
Not a very big one... they get HUGE... but it's fresh and young, which means it's still soft and there are no bugs in it yet. If I'd left it to grow a few more days, someone else would've found it!
Sitting in my car on the way home...
I sliced it up in thin slices and fried it in butter and it was
SO
INCREDIBLY
GOOD
OH MY GOD
It tastes NOTHING like a plain old mushroom. It's almost meaty, savory, intense... astounding. I shared some with Hipster Scott at work, and he said it "blew his mind"! SO GOOD. I had no idea it would be that good. I am now obsessed with finding more of it... except it's pure luck, unless you know where you've found it before. I WANT MORE.
Anyway...
Oh, and cats.
Bubba Kit, the King of Everything
And Loki, the pretty cross-eyed princess
And that will be all.
.
.