Onion-bagel Pholiota

I chose this mushroom for no particular reason, except for the fact that it might be the most appropriately named mushroom that I've found. The Onion-bagel Pholiota (Pholiota aurivella) is a mushroom that starts out with a veil. Then, as the mushroom grows, the veil sticks to the stem, forming a ring. Some of these mushrooms leave traces of the veil on the cap, forming scales on the top. The scales on particular mushroom are dark in color. That, combined with the orange color of the mushroom itself, means that it look exactly like an onion bagel. It's weird. They are typically found on living deciduous trees that have been damaged in some way. And no, they aren't edible.

Steel-blue Entoloma

After a bit of a break, the mushroom today is the Steel-blue Entoloma (Entoloma nitidum). Definitely one of the most distinctive (and bluest) I've seen, it has a large, fleshy cap that is convex to umbonate. The well spaced gills start out white, then turn pink over time. The stem is tough and fibrous, and is not considered edible. The only downside to this mushroom is that it is not found in North America, sadly. Damn foreigners, they get all the good mushrooms.

Green Stain Cup

Jessie and I were watching The Simpsons the other night, and during one of the scenes there were some mushrooms growing in the background. She asked me what kind they were. They were just a typically mushroom shape, but were bright green, so this is the closest I could come up with. The Green Stain Cup (Chlorociboria aeruginascens) is a flat to cup shaped mushroom, with a cap that is green to blue green. It grows in dead or dying oak or hazel trees. What makes this mushroom notable (and gives it its name) is the fact that it produced a greenish stain in the wood, which some people call "green oak". Never having seen one, I'd like to get a chance to see both the color of these as well as the green-stained wood they produce.

Destroying Angel

There are three mushrooms that I want to find in the new year, the Fly Amanita and the two notable toxic mushrooms, the Destroying Angel and the Death Cap. The Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa), besides having one of the coolest names of any fungus, is one of the two musrooms responsible for nearly all mushroom-related fatalities in the United States. The primary reason for the number of fatalities tied to this mushroom is that there are several varieties of edible mushrooms that look similar to it, and people who are careless don't take the time to properly identify it.

The Destroying Angel has several features that distinguish it from other mushrooms, regardless of appearance. The most important is the presence of a saclike volva, usually buried underneath the soil. It is this feature that identifies it as a member of the Amanita family, and therefore to be avoided. It is white to ivory colored, with crowded gills and a bell-shaped or conical cap. What differentiates this from other Amanita species is that the ring is often indistinct to not present.

Red Hot Milky

I chose this one strictly because I like the name. It sounds like the name of a trendy new cocktail. Lactarius rufus is actually a tan-ish, mostly flat capped mushroom with attached gills, purplish flesh and an acrid smell. Like some Russulas, the flesh seems mild at first, becoming extremely hot in a few moments. This mushroom is apparently quite common throughout North America, though I don't recall having seen one. I suppose this means I'll have to post about the Dirty Milky at some point.

Western Woodland Amanita

I decided to choose a random mushroom today, and I landed on the Western Woodland Amanita (Amanita silvicola). This mushroom is in the Amanita family, which is notable for containing the two mushrooms that are the culprit in nearly every mushroom-related fatality in the United States. This one, however, is not poisonous. Which is a good thing, since it doesn't have the ring or cup that are associated with Amanitas, which might make it difficult to identify. It is quite pretty, however, with a striking white cap and a wide, sloping stem. I'm looking forward to see many more Amanitas than I did last year, when I got started too late, and most of them had rotted away.

White Matsutake

Jessie and I went out to the Oregon coast several months ago, and since we were going to have some time to kill, I brought along my mushroom books in case I had time to do any foraging. When most people went off to eat squeaky cheese in Tillamook, I went off to look for mushrooms.

I found a pretty wide variety, including some bolletes and agaricus species. I was heading back from my walk when I spotted some generic looking white mushrooms underneath a conifer tree. I had to dig them out from the loose dirt to get a look at them. They were fairly large, with white flesh, crowded gills and a prominent ring. I was excited, because I thought I might have found some Destroying Angels, which I've always wanted to find. I went back to the house to identify them, and realized that I could identify all of them except the white ones. To get the mushroom out from the soil, I had cut them off halfway up the stem, which meant that I couldn't tell if they had a volva, or sac-like base. So I went back, dug out the rest, and managed to find three more.

It turns out, they were not Destroying Angels, but White Matsutakes (Tricholoma magnivelare). I was able to identify them because they had no volva (which the Destroying Angel has) and a very prominent ring (which the D.A. does not). Most of all, the White Matsutake has an unforgettable odor, which smells almost exactly like cinnamon life savers. We sliced them thin, grilled them, and topped with a little salt and olive oil. They were amazing, with an almost truffle like perfume. They are the edible mushroom I am most looking forward to this year.