We’ve seen a return of oppressive humidity and that has triggered daily thunderstorms. Since mushrooms are about 95 percent water, this means we’re having perfect weather for mushroom hunting. I’ve never seen as many as we have this year, of every shape and color imaginable.
Last year the season for finger coral mushrooms seemed brief, but this year they go on and on and are still easily found. One fact helpful in identifying these yellow finger coral mushrooms (Clavulinopsis fusiformis) is that they always grow in tight clusters, while look alikes do not. These are also called spindle corals.
Crown coral mushrooms come in many colors, sizes, and shapes. This yellow tipped one was as big as a grapefruit. I think it might be a golden coral (Ramaria aurea,) but as my mushroom books say, there are so many similar coral mushrooms that it’s hard to tell them apart without a microscope. I just enjoy seeing them and they are everywhere right now.
I think this pale orange one might be crown tipped coral (Clavicorona pyxidata,) which changes color from white through pink and finally orange.
Gray coral (Clavulina cinerea) is heavily branched with sharply pointed tips. Some mushroomers think this might be a variety of cockscomb coral.
Cockscomb coral mushrooms (Clavulina cristata) are ghostly while and, like many coral mushrooms, seem to prefer growing in hard packed earth like that found on woodland trails. These were everywhere the day I took this photo. It’s startling to see something so pure white come out of the dark soil.
Bear’s head or lion’s mane mushroom (Hericlum americanum) is a toothed fungus that looks like a fungal waterfall. Soft spines hang from branches that reach out from a thick central stalk. This is another color changing mushroom that goes from white to cream to brown as it ages. I find it mostly on beech logs and trees. This one was large-probably about as big as a cantaloupe.
I think these small yellow mushrooms might be butter wax caps (Hygrocybe ceracea.) I don’t see very many yellow mushrooms.
Purple cort mushroom caps (Cortinarius iodeoides) always look wet but they aren’t-they are slimy. That’s why they often have leaves, pine needles, and other forest debris stuck to their caps. This one was quite clean.
Orange mycena (Mycena leaiana) Like to grow in clusters on the sides of hardwood logs. Its stems are sticky and if you touch these mushrooms the orange color will come off on your hand. I think this is one of the most visually pleasing mushrooms and I was happy to see several large clusters.
An animal had knocked over what I think is a Marasmius delectans and I found it backlit by the very dim light one cloudy afternoon. This mushroom is closely related to the smaller pinwheel mushrooms that follow. This one was close to the diameter of a nickel. The Marasmius part of the scientific name means “wither” or “shrivel” in Greek, and refers to the way these mushrooms shrivel in dry weather and then rehydrate when it rains.
Tiny little pinwheel mushrooms (Marasmius capillaris) can be very hard to focus on. I usually take quite a few photos of them from different angles and end up scrapping most of them. Pinwheel mushrooms are relatively easy to identify because they grow only on fallen oak leaves. The caps on the largest of these might reach pea size on a good day.
The yellow-orange fly agaric (Amanita muscaria var. formosa) has an almost metallic shine sometimes. The white spots (called warts) are what are left of the universal veil that covered the mushroom when it was in the immature “egg” stage. I usually find these growing under white pine or eastern hemlock trees.
I don’t see too many jelly fungi like this Tarzetta cupularis, which is classified as one of the sac fungi. Gelatinous fungi like these can absorb large amounts of water and then shrink down to a fraction of their original size as they dry out. They can appear in any one of many different shapes and colors and little seems to be known about them. There were 2 or 3 of this type growing on a rotting beech log.
Orange jelly fungus (Dacrymyces palmatus) is also found on logs and is fairly common. This one was wet and as big as a walnut, but as it dries out it might shrink down to hard little lump that is half the size of a pea. Then, once it rains again it will return to what it looks like in the photo. This is also sometimes called brain fungus and witch’s butter.
The deep purple horn of plenty (Craterellus cornucopioides) is another mushroom that is very beautiful, and one that I hadn’t ever seen until the day this photo was taken. Also called the black chanterelle, mushroom hunters say it is very hard to find because looking for it is like looking for black holes in the ground. Some have said that they can look right at it and not see it. For once I’m grateful for the colorblindness that makes it easier for me to see such an apparently rare thing.
Information for those interested: I recently bought an LED light to use in dark places instead of a flash, which can discolor some subjects. I used it on the 3rd, 5th, and 14th photos, counting down from the top. Flash was used on the 1st, 9th, and 11th photos, again counting down form the top. The LED light works well and I’m happy with it but I’d still rather use natural lighting, and it was used for everything else.
Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art is a mushroom. ~Thomas Carlyle
Thanks for coming by.
Glad I found your blog so I can ID the local flora I’ve been taking pictures of! I just moved here from the Midwest, so the plant life here is very different! Thanks for writing an awesome blog!
You’re welcome. I hope the blog helps you with your identifications.
That is some collection of fungi! Mike is right your photographs are as beautiful as flower photographs.
Thanks you. It isn’t hard to take good photos when the subject is as beautiful as some of these are.
Reblogged this on fatgirlskitchen and commented:
For anyone who likes walking in the woods this post will have you looking at the ground far more closely. Who knew fungi could be so beautiful!
Thanks for the re-blog. It isn’t just wildflowers that are beautiful!
The lions mane would not look out of place in a Japanese garden. Until I started reading your blog I didn’t know fungi could be so beautiful. You certainly have me looking more closely at the ground when I’m walking through the woods.
I’m glad to hear it. The whole point of this blog is to show people what they might be missing out there.
Thank you for the beautiful pictures.. I never seem to he lucky enough to find fungi so I will in future be watching more carefully and hope I get to see some as lovely as you have seen..
You’re welcome. I’m not sure where you’re located but here in the northeat the best time is a day or two after a rain at this time of year.
What great photos! Each one I said “Wow!”
I have seen plenty of stump mushrooms here, I don’t know their scientific name. We picked them and ate them when I was growing up.
You sure have some interesting fungus there in New Hampshire.
🙂
Thanks Chris. Mushroom photos are relatively easy if you can figure out how to light the dark spaces they grow in. I’ve seen many different kinds of mushrooms growing on stumps, so I’m glad you’re still here to tell the tale of eating them! I wouldn’t be surprised to find that most of these grow in Michigan too.
Is is fun to enter a different world when mushroom venturing. What a super job you do at finding and identifying them. So many corals that I have not seen. I to try and always shoot natural light. So I go mushroom hunting when the light is highest and harshest in the middle of the day, when it is not good light for other subjects. In the woods mid day the light is filtered naturally. Thanks for sharing your finds.
Thanks Grampy. I wish i could get out there at mid day every day, but that isn’t possible. I know what you mean though-there’s no light like natural light.
What an amazing display of beautiful ‘shrooms! I have fallen in love with the Bear’s head one!
It’s interesting that there you have had such wet weather, while here it has been extremely dry. There are very few mushrooms about.
It’s too bad that you’re so dry out there this year. I wonder what your winter will bring. I’ve seen several of the bear’s head mushrooms, but they aren’t real common.
So here’s the big question, which ones are edible?
You won’t catch me eating any of them and I never recommend that anyone eat any wild plant unless they are absolutely positive that it isn’t toxic. With that being said I’ve read that mycologists think that most coral mushrooms are safe to eat (but some “taste like dirt,”) and the black chanterelle is supposed to be a delicacy.
I’ve got billions of those pinwheels in my south woods.
I’ve never seen as many as we have this year. Conditions must be perfect for mushroom making.
You are the king of the fungus. Great shots.
Thanks! (I think)
Those are the greatest photos of mushrooms I have ever seen!
Thank you. That’s quite a compliment!
Amazing shots. Beautifully photographed. I still haven’t gotten around to processing my fungi from July!
Thank you Melanie. Just keep taking more pictures of them-it’ll give you something to do this winter!
Awesome post. I’ve always loved mushrooms and fungi. I especially like your photo of the lion’s mane. Very cool looking!
Thanks Laura. I saw 4 or 5 of those that day on logs and trees. I don’t know what it is that’s happening this year but I’ve seen more mushrooms than I ever have. The Friedsam forest in Chesterfield is a great place for mushrooms!
Glad you checked it out!
Wow! The photos are great, and the LED does seem to work well. Have you tried diffusing the flash unit that you use? My brother bought a remote flash unit to use, that worked OK, but was too bright. By using the diffuser that came with the unit that he bought, it made a world of difference, much more natural looking.
It’s been quite dry here, so I haven’t seen many of these this year, but I have in the past, it’s always great to learn more about them, since I have no idea where to start looking for information on them. Well, I could buy a book, but that would require me to sit inside and read it. 😉
Thanks! Yes, I’ve been using a piece of rip stop nylon as a diffuser on both the flash and LED. It helps to kill the harsh shadows and gives a softer, more even light. I’ve thought about a remote flash too, but one thing I like about the LED is that I can set it on the ground, hang it from a branch, or whatever. It’s very versatile.
I find most of the information I need in guide books but looking through them does get old fast. I can only take so much of it.
Well, what you’re doing is working great. One advantage that the LED has over a flash of any type, is that you can see the lighting as it will appear in the photo, and not have to take test shots to adjust the power and position of the remote flash.
I’ve never used a remote flash and, from what you’ve said here, I’m glad I haven’t. It sounds like too much hassle to go through when you’re crawling around in the woods. With the LED I just turn it on and set it down-no problems at all.
Yeah, keep it simple! I spent an hour on the phone with my brother problem solving his flash/lighting problems. He has a ring light that attaches to the lens, doesn’t work well. His next step was to try a cheap remote flash, too harsh 95% of the time. He’s now using the diffuser that came with the flash, and a piece of thin cloth to get good macro photos.
He should try an LED. Cheap, simple, and easy to use. They eat batteries, but since you don’t use it that much it’s not bad. The worst part about it is remembering that I have it!
Ha! He’s sunk $300+ into stuff that doesn’t work well, if I tell him to use a $10 LED, he may shoot me. Actually, I was going to suggest it to him, but I was waiting until I found out how yours worked. I can see that I need one!
it really works great but if I had it to do over I’d get an even cheaper one, because I don’t need 100 lumens-it’s too bright. 50 lumens would probably be enough and would probably cost under $15.00. You can’t beat that.
What a fascinating collection, Allen. I don’t see nearly as many varieties out here in the Wasatch Mountains, although I don’t go exploring to actually find them either, so maybe there really are more out there.
Thanks Scott. I think if you really started looking for them you’d find that you have as many as we do, unless it’s really dry there. The best time to find them is after a fay or two of rain.
You’re welcome…and I’m sure I’d see more if I went searching for them…but we do have a very dry climate here…I’ve read that we’re the second most arid state…somehow we get more moisture than Arizona, but less than Nevada. At any rate, the mountains seem to get more precipitation than we do down in the valley and I know it’s more humid up there, too. I do have some photos of fungi for you, though…I take them whenever I see them on my hikes….just need to get the post together…. 😉
I’m looking forward to seeing some Utah fungi! I wonder if they’ll be very different than what I see here.
Can’t imagine that they’d be very different, but I’ll get them together so you can tell me if they are. 🙂
I’ll give it a try.
Love the purple horn of plenty! Great shots!
Thanks Martha. That’s one of my favorites too.
Wow – amazing photos. You certainly see a more interesting area of the state than I do so I thank you for sharing.
You’re welcome Judy. I spend a lot of time in the woods, that’s all.
The mushrooms inspire a desire to paint fanciful creations. Book illustrators have such fun depicting mushrooms in children’s stories. I remember wandering the woods on my own ( times have changed) as a little child on my way home from school in the fall looking for mushrooms and fairies!
My mother bought me a children’s encyclopedia and one volume had all kinds of drawings of fairies and mushrooms and talking animals, so I spent my childhood in much the same way that you did.
The quotation at the end of the posting really fits–the mushrooms (and other fungi) truly are works of art. I love the diversity and quality of your images of these amazing finds. The gorgeous colors and textures can easily stand up with any images of flowers. I love the purple mushroom and am still looking for one.
Thanks Mike. The caps on these purple cort mushrooms will get as big as an Oreo cookie so they’re relatively easy to find, but they might not grow where you are. I love the beauty of mushrooms. The different colors and shapes often have me comparing them to flowers in my mind.