![]() All parts of the Jack in the pulpit plant contain calcium oxalate crystals that cause painful irritation of the mouth and throat if eaten, but Native Americans knew how to cook the fleshy roots to remove any danger. Deer must love them because they usually disappear almost as soon as they turn red. Jack in the pulpit berries ( Arisaema triphyllum) are ripe and red, waiting for a deer to come along and eat them. These entities move through the forest looking for food or a suitable place to fruit and eventually come together in a mass. I think this one might be spreading yellow tooth slime ( Phanerochaete chrysorhiza.) Slime molds, even though sometimes covering a large area, are actually made up of hundreds or thousands of single entities. ![]() Slime molds are very sensitive to drying out so they usually move at night, but they can be found on cloudy, humid days as well. When slime molds are in this state they are usually moving-very slowly. This one in its plasmodium stage was wasn’t very big at all, probably due to the dryness. Some slime molds can be very small and others quite large. They seem to be the least understood of all the fungi. Their spore bearing surface can be wrinkled, smooth, warty, toothed, or porous and though they appear on the undersides of logs the main body of the fungus is in the wood, slowly decomposing it. Resupinate means upside down, and that’s what many crust fungi appear to be. Crust fungi are called resupinate fungi and have flat, crust like fruiting bodies which usually appear on the undersides of fallen branches and logs. Apparently its common name is simply blue crust fungus. At this time of year I always roll logs over hoping to find the beautiful but rare cobalt crust fungus ( Terana caerulea,) but usually I find this lighter shade of blue instead. I saw quite a few small gnat like insects around the dying ones. This mushroom uses its carrion like odor to attracts insects, which are said to disperse its sticky spores. The green conical cap is also said to be slimy but it didn’t look it. I think they’re the common stinkhorn ( Phallus impudicus) and I have to say that for the first time I smelled odor like rotting meat coming from them because these example were passing on. I don’t see many stinkhorn fungi but I hit the stinkhorn jackpot this year there must have been 20 or more of them growing out of some well rotted wood chips. Vikings are said to have used it for that very reason. ![]() Fly agaric is said to have the ability to “turn off” fear in humans and is considered toxic. The story says that when flies drank the milk they died, but it’s something I’ve never tried. The name fly agaric comes from the practice of putting pieces of the mushroom in a dish of milk. They’re common where pine trees grow and this one was under a pine. I love the metallic yellow color of these mushrooms when they’re young. I saw a young fly agaric ( Amanita muscaria v. Though they’re said to be brown I see green. This edible polypore often grows in the same spot year after year and that makes it quite easy to find. They are said to look like the back of a brown hen’s ruffled feathers, and that’s how they come by their common name. I found it this hen of the woods fungus ( Grifola frondosa,) growing at the base of an old oak tree. They are very tough and leathery and can persist for quite a long time. The cap is very thin and flat like a table, and another name for it is the fairy stool. The concentric rings of color are also unusual and sometimes make it look like a turkey tail fungus with a stem. ![]() Most polypores are bracket or shelf fungi. One of my favorite fungal finds is called the tiger’s eye mushroom ( Coltricia perennis.) One reason it’s unusual is because it’s one of the only polypores with a central stem. There are some that don’t have many lookalikes and though I’m usually fairly confident of a good identification for them I still don’t eat them. The frustrating thing about mushroom identification is how for most of them you can never be sure without a microscope, and that’s why I never eat them. I thought that’s what they were until I smelled them but these examples had no citrus scent, so I’d say they must be Pholiota aurivella which, except for its smaller spores and the lack of a lemon scent, appears identical. We’re still very dry here and I haven’t seen hardly any of the mushrooms I’d expect to see but here was a dead birch tree full of golden pholiota mushrooms ( Pholiota limonella) just like it was last year.
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