Mycology Blog, Mushrooms and Their Greatness

Russula brevipes - The specimen I collected was larger than my head! It's extremely sturdy but at the same time if enough force is applied the damn thing will explode into tiny pieces.


Amanita Muscaria - In the PNW we get the orange/yellow specimens instead of the posterchild red one you would normally see. These cause serious hallucinations if consumed. Do not confuse with psilocybe mushrooms.


Fomitopsis pinicola - "The artists conk". These things are huge and heavy! They grow on the sides of conifers and are as tough as wood. You can run your fingers on the bottom of these and leave drawings that will last for years.


Hydnum repandum - I only found two of these and they definitely don't feel like what you'd expect. The teeth are extremely soft to the touch. Supposedly these taste really good but unfortunately both my specimens had to be put to use for my collection.


Laccaria amethysteo-occidentalis - The few I found where a beautiful purple/brown color. The nuts part is that when you pull them out of the ground the mycelium usually comes with and it has the most vivid purple color I've seen in nature.


Panaeolus Cintulus - A moderately active mushroom. Found a few of them in the grassy patches among the trees. The ones I found initially I believed to be Pann. Fonesecci (my fault on spelling) due to the fact that we weren't anywhere close to land development areas, where these are usually found, but my professor corrected me.


Psuedohydnum gelatinosum - This was probably the coolest mushroom I found. You can literally see right through the mushroom! It even has little teeth like the hedgehog mushroom.



Ramaria formosa - This is a coral fungi. These things are pretty cool in the fact that they really only show when the forest is really healthy . Not edible though.


Scleroderma - I'm not 100% on which exact species this is but I know it's in the scleroderma family. This family includes earthballs. I pulled a picture of Scleroderma cepa; they all sort of look the same.


Suillus luteus - These are sooooo yummy. The common name is the butter bolete. I found like 50 of them growing outside my house . They are associated with pine trees.