#mushroom hunting

[memoriesofthepark]

Clustered bonnet 》 Mycena inclinata

Always grateful to my camping buddy for taking candids of me. I much prefer them to posed pictures.

Brazos Bend State Park, TX, 4 Jan. 2025

[melgillman]

Chanterelle season is here! Here’s the page I drew about them in my brand new mushroom hunting zine. You can read the whole comic for free or pay-what-you-want: https://ko-fi.com/s/6c16d1553e

[lavender-appalachia]

[rebeccathenaturalist]

After this morning's Christmas Bird Count, my friend and I went to Hawthorne Street for a couple of errands. We parked near two trees on a side street, which yielded up a lovely array of lichens, fungi, and moss. My best guesses for IDs:

Oakmoss lichen (Evernia prunastri)

Racomitrium sp.

Whitewash lichen (Phylictris argena)

Hairy Curtain Crust (Stereum hirsutum)

Splitgill mushroom (Schizophyllum commune)

Mossy Maze Polypore (Cerrena unicolor)

Candelariaceae sp.

[herbalnature]

Check out these vibrant Gliophorus psittacinus mushrooms sprouting from the earthy bed of a British Columbia forest. Their whimsical shapes and colors seem like little treasures hidden amidst the forest floor.

[turtlesandfrogs]

I haven't been posting much because this mushroom season has been incredible, and incredibly abundant! And I may have been spending every spare moment I had either foraging, double checking identifications, or looking up recipes. Here, have some pictures:

[fungusqueen]

Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus gilbertsonii) I found by chance when my friend was running late for our beach date. I had heard there was a small local farm on this street and decided to drive around looking for it; I spotted this growing on a big eucalyptus tree! I happened to walk up just as the homeowner was pulling in her trash cans and we started talking about the fungus...she already knew what it was and told me I could harvest as much as I wanted!

There's a rumor/myth in the mushroom community (also written in a lot of mushroom guides) that say you shouldn't eat this mushroom growing on eucalyptus trees...because allegedly something in the eucalyptus can enter the mushroom and make you sick (with short-term gastrointestinal distress). I asked the homeowner about this and she says this mushroom has been fruiting on her tree for the past 10 years and she's eaten/cooked it and never had any issue.

I harvested some/set it aside for myself with the intention of doing my own "research" (cooking and eating) to debunk the myth but I haven't had time to cook it yet.

I brought some for 4 of my friends, with the warning that they may experience gastrointestinal distress, but they are still willing participants in my impromptu "study". One even told me he hoped it might give him diarrhea (because he's been constipated), so honestly this type of honesty and willingness to get diarrhea is the best case scenario for my "sample group". I will keep everyone updated here because I'm genuinely curious and I do intend to "study" people's alleged reaction to eating this fungus.

Anyway, the homeowner was lovely and I suggested she consult an arborist to test if her tree may be dying. This fungus causes brown rot, which decays the cellulose of the wood it grows in. She expressed concerns about it falling on her house or onto the street if it was dead inside.

I plan to revist next year to see if it's still fruting and if the tree is still there!

[palaeosinensis]

NINE. POUND. MUSHROOM.

I was too sick to cook so we left for takeout food and my spouse spotted this ginormous hen of the woods just off the drive. We’ve found them a few times before but always too late.

I have no idea what to do with it beyond “cook it”.

[mariekonrad]

we went hunting for mushrooms, but found wild herbs instead, alcublas, spain / oktober 24

[truepinkshape]

Aesthetics of the inedible...

[memoriesofthepark]

Pink cup lichen 》 Cladonia peziziformis

My first cladonia lichen! So gorgeous!!

Found growing on the stones of a fire pit.

Caddo Lake State Park, Texas, 3 Aug. 2024

[melgillman]

A page from my new mushroom hunting zine! dinosaur egg mushrooms are real and they are delicious

Check out the whole zine here!

[sunflowerrwitch]

Barlow Trail // Sandy, Oregon

[rebeccathenaturalist]

So you may have seen my posts about AI foraging guides, or watched the mini-class I have up on YouTube on what I found inside of them. Apparently the intersection of AI and foraging has gotten even worse, with a chatbot that joined a mushroom foraging groups on Facebook only to immediately suggest ways people could cook a toxic species:

First, and most concerningly, this once again reinforces how much we should NOT be trusting AI to tell us what mushrooms are safe to eat. While they can compile information that's fed to them and regurgitate it in somewhat orderly manners, this is not the same as a living human being who has critical thinking skills to determine the veracity of a given piece of information, or physical senses to examine a mushroom, or the ability to directly experience the act of foraging. These skills and experiences are absolutely crucial to being a reliable forager, particularly one who may be passing on information to others.

We already have enough trouble with inaccurate info in the foraging community, and trying to ride herd on both the misinformed and the bad actors. This AI was presented as the first chat option for any group member seeking answers, which is just going to make things tougher for those wanting to keep people from accidentally poisoning themselves. Moreover, chatbots like this one routinely are trained on and grab information from copyrighted sources, but do not give credit to the original authors. Anyone who's ever written a junior-high level essay knows that you have to cite your sources even if you rewrite the information; otherwise it's just plagiarism.

Fungi Friend is yet one more example of how generative AI has been anything but a positive development on multiple levels.

[herbalnature]

A touch of whimsy in the woods of British Columbia with these vibrant Gliophorus psittacinus mushrooms, their glistening caps peeking out from the forest floor. They really bring a pop of color to your day, don't they?

[obelisart]

Meow Are You? Territorial (part 1)