#Questionable stropharia

[orofeaiel]

Lone Questionable Stropharia

[photozoi]

Questionable Stropharia

[californiaquail]

SHROOM SHOTS

[sp0rewh0re]

welcome to my adult / mycology page - hoping to find people who are curious about mushrooms and who don’t mind getting some spicy nature pics (this is a questionable stropharia)

[e-paleolith]

questionable stropharia+ some baby pictures

[seabeck]

Questionable stropharia

[mushroominaforest]

Hello! Your banner says that if you ask about mushrooms, you can talk about them for hours, let's check. 1) What is your favorite mushroom and why? 2) What effects of mushrooms on both animals and people do you know? 3) From question 2, which effect do you like the most in terms of effectiveness? 4) What do you think of the cordyceps mushroom? 5) What is your favorite dish based on mushrooms or a dish where mushrooms are an additive?

!!WARNING!! I am not a mycologist or fungi expert! I'm just a girl who has been hyperfixated on mycology for three years and counting lmfao. My information comes mostly from books written by mycologists and expert foragers, but take this all with a grain of salt lol. I do not know everything, and there's a chance I'm straight-up wrong about some of this! I don't think I am, I would never intentionally spread incorrect information, but be careful just in case! anyways, mandatory warning out of the way, on to the potentially-partially-misinformed-but-I-don't-think-it-is infodump!!!

1)

Okay, I think this is the seventh time I’ve answered the question about my favourite mushroom 😭, I’ll answer again instead of just linking it this time lol.

I have a few favourites for a few different reasons!

The violet court/webcap (more than the viscid violet court, but I do love that one too lol) is one of my favourites purely because it is a beautiful rich purple to black colour- it’s really pretty! I also like the bluefoot bonnet, and the newly discovered Mycena subcyanocephala mushroom and the Stropharia caerulea mushrooms are also beautiful. Bioluminescent fungi are absolutely mesmerizing in the dark too! I couldn’t pick my favourite beautiful mushroom lol.

For sentimental reasons, the mica cap mushroom was the first one that I ever spore-printed, the prince mushroom was the first one I ever foraged and ate, and the king oyster was the first one I ever grew myself!

2)

…okay, I know a lot. I mostly just know of their effects on humans though, so apologies. I’ll rant about one particular poisonous example to start, the destroying angel! It’s a particularly brutal one, because the symptoms often won’t show up for hours or even days after you ate the mushroom, and a lot of times at that point it’s already too late. It also has a brief period where you think or feel like you’re getting better, before it comes back in full swing to kill you. Typical symptoms of a messed up stomach, along with kidney and/or liver failure. It’s brutal, and it’s very common for patients who are hospitalized by it to die, because by the time they feel bad enough to go to the hospital, the poison is well in their systems. It’s closely related to the death cap, and together they are known as the deadly duo. Another interesting one is the Alcohol Inky, Inky cap or Tippler’s bane mushroom! It’s edible- unless you have alcohol in your system. Even the tiniest bit before or after eating this mushroom (with a four-day buffer) will set off poisonous reactions! Hence the name “Tippler’s bane” lol. On a more positive note, there’s tons of medical mushrooms! Turkey tail has been used to strengthen the immune system of cancer patients. The agarikon has been used to strengthen lungs, treat asthma and help with coughs! Of course, a famous example of a medical fungi is the penicillin vaccine that saved polio patients, but I don’t know too much about that so I’ll try to avoid spreading false information lol. It is amazing though! Even psilocybe- magic mushrooms- have been used to treat PTSD, OCD, depression etc. (CLINICALLY of course, don’t do drugs kids lmao). Hallucinogenic mushrooms are a whole other story about their effects on humans and other animals, and I admit I’m not that knowledgeable about that side of the foraging appeal lol. LSD is kinda wack, to put it bluntly. You kinda have to do shrooms to properly understand the effects lmfao- You gotta be one with the mushroom, man.

3)

Personally, I haven’t experienced any of these effects myself. I have yet to poison myself, I tend to turn to Tylenol instead of fungi when I’m sick and I haven’t done shrooms lmao. I think that the poisonous mushrooms are very cool and effective, there are so many different ways that fungi can try to kill a human, and it’s very fascinating how they each go about it! The death cap in particular is a very effective killer, so props to it.

4)

ah, cordyceps. The inspiration for The Last of Us, one of the finest irl body horror parasites, an equally disturbing and fascinating fungi!

I think cordyceps is a very incredible fungi, although I’d probably have a different opinion if I was a particularly unlucky bug who got infected with it. For those of you who don’t know what cordyceps is, it’s a brutal parasitic fungi responsible for the horrors known as zombie ants. A mycelium system grows inside the ant and fucks up its head, in the simplest of terms. The ant suddenly has a very strong urge to climb, and so it does, typically to the underside highest leaf it can get to. From there, it locks it’s mandibles to the leaf and stays there until it dies (this can take a few days, which must really suck for the ant). The mycelium makes itself known, attaching to the leaf and making the ant appear white and fuzzy, and then a mushroom pops out of its body and spreads its spores far and wide to go commit more atrocities in the cordyceps family name.

cordyceps isn’t the only fungi that’s parasitic on insects, although it is perhaps the best known. Some fungi in this parasite branch are even parasitic on other fungi, while some are the boogeymen haunting the dreams of larvae, caterpillars, spiders and more. Luckily none go after humans, so we’re safe for now! Insects are simply smaller and easier to take over, and aren’t filled with as much blood, complicated organs, immune system defences and body heat. Fungi could probably figure out a way to do this to us, but it’s simply more convenient for them to not. There are tons of fungi that are parasitic to humans though, they just don’t turn us into zombies!

5)

This Morel soup I had at a mycology convention once. It was so fire lmao.

[mycoblogg]

FOTD #108 : blue roundhead! (stropharia caerulea)

the blue roundhead is an agaric fungus in the family strophariaceae :-) it grows as a saprophyte in meadows, roadsides, hedgerows, gardens, & woodchip mulch in both europe & north america !!

the big question : can i bite it?? nah, it is inedible.

s. caerulea description :

"fruit bodies have conical to flattened caps measuring 2–7.5 cm (0.8–3.0 in) in diameter. they usually have a low, broad umbo. the colour of the cap depends on its age, ranging from pale blue-green to yellowish-bluish green. there is often a whitish zone around the margin, which invariably has bluish-green tints. when moist, the cap is sticky with a cuticle that may be readily peeled; dry caps are smooth & shiny. gills are initially pale purplish-brown, becoming darker brown in age as the spores mature. they have an adnate or sinuate attachment to the stipe. the stipe has a short-lived annular (ring) zone."

[images : source & source] [fungus description : source]

[rhiannatruex]

questionable Stropharia

[doubleduchessdesign]

Went out mushroom hunting today, during a break in the rain. Took lots of photos. Found a few edibles - assorted boletes and a couple gem-studded puffballs. Thought I found a patch of cubes, but thorough id-ing revealed otherwise. I haven't seen a single oyster yet this year, which is odd. Last year we were filling up multiple grocery bags and still barely making a dent in the patches we found.

I'm excited to eat those puffballs with scrambled eggs tomorrow, they go so well together.

Pictured are:

1. Sulpher Caps devouring a stump from the inside out

2. A large Questionable Stropharia. That's what it's called, really.

3. A profusion of bracket fungus, which I didn't id but I thought was pretty

[orofeaiel]

Questionable Stropharia

[thebashfulbotanist]

Around this time every year, dozens of concerned folks post this lovely mushroom in identification forums, anxiously wondering if they’re found a deathcap. Nope! This beauty is Stropharia ambigua, the questionable stropharia. It’s recognizable by its slate grey gills, yellow cap, and gorgeous, delicate and feathery veil. While beautiful, and likely not poisonous, it has a pretty gross taste (like eating soggy dead leaves) and isn’t considered edible. 

[bean-mama]

Long time no see, Tumblr! Here’s some Stropharia ambigua from my walk in the woods today

[pnwfungusamongus]

Stropharia ambigua  - Questionable Stropharia     +5p

Habitat: Growing terrestrially from rich soils such as wood chips. Common throughout the U.S West Coast favoring niches that are cold, dark, and damp.  

Edibility: Tastes like dirt

Spore Color: Dark purple brown to black

Gill Color: Purplish-gray to black

Cap Color: Buff yellow to yellow-brown

I need to know more!

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This Questionable Stropharia (Stropharia ambigua) popped up in the woods nearby recently! It's a really pretty #mushroom, and it even has "lace" trim, too.

[catsnroses]

Stropharia ambigua 

Stropharia ambigua, sometimes known as the Questionable Stropharia, is a saprotrophic agaric mushroom, commonly fruiting in leaf litter and wood chips in the Pacific Northwest.