Mushroom of the Month (MOM)
Learn a new mushroom or just refresh your memory! The M.O.M. page is a good source for background intel on mushrooms you may encounter in your wanderings.
Past Mushrooms of the Month
Marasmius plicatulus (by Christian Schwarz)
Mushroom of the Month: October, 2015
We’ve probably all run across Marasmius plicatulus during our walks in the woods; the tall, brightly-colored fruitbodies occur in many kinds of habitats every year, often in large troops. And what an excellent little mushroom to be so familiar. This species has a lot of features setting it apart from the rest of it’s marasmioid brethren: electric-sunset stipe coloration, oddly wiry-stipes (often tipped in pom-poms of creamy-white mycelium), and finely velvety caps often covered in beaded-up water droplets.
Prince (Agaricus augustus) (by Sue Labiste/Katherine Elvin)
Mushroom of the Month: June, 2015
As a member of FFSC, I have been trying to find my "prince" in the woods. I have heard rumors that they have been around in the fall/spring at Marshall fields, but for me, I am still waiting.
My friend Sue Labiste found some right outside her home in the Santa Cruz mountains. Here is what she shared. Hopefully my luck will change.
Meet Amanita pruittii: Arora’s Amanita, Anonymous No More! (by Debbie Viess)
Mushroom of the Month: April, 2015
Those of us who are passionate about all aspects of wild mushrooms are a breed apart. As mycophilic outliers to the societal norm, what better focus for our discerning attention than a mycological oddity like the newly named Amanita pruittii? This mushroom is unimposing, squat and warted, sometimes grows in standing water, and most curiously, is not found with a mycorrhizal partner!
What kind of strange Amanita is this??!
Fomes fomentarius, the “Tinder Fungus” (by )
Mushroom of the Month: October, 2014
Recently four small specimens of Fomes fomentarius were gifted to me by a friend returning from the FFSC Alaska foray. I was delighted, but not for the usual reasons.
Most of us enjoy the process of walking through moist forests in search of fungi for the table. For some of us, it is the hope of finding a rare or unusual species that draws us to the woods. But in a time before matches and Bic lighters, a hike in the woods yielded fungi that held the promise of a fire.
A Bolete by Any Other Name... (by )
Mushroom of the Month: September, 2014
As many of you know the mushroom world has been going through a lot of changes in recent years with the onset of genetic sequencing. One of the main impacts of this has been the renaming or reclassification of not only singular mushrooms, but in some instances whole genera (heck, Suillus got its own family!). It sometimes seems that just about every mushroom we see in our local woods now has a new name or spot in the myco tree of life. And one of our most prized groups of local mushrooms, the boletes, is no exception. With the recent publishing of scientific papers some of their names have changed as well. So let’s dive in at the first official wave of name changes to impact our beloved Boletus.