Mushroom Mania

This autumn has been crazy with mushrooms - more than I've ever seen in the 30 years I've lived on Marrowstone. This makes for a unique opportunity to find, document and ID mushrooms you may not see again for years. Besides dining on a steady supply, we are finding mushrooms we've never seen before.

See what other people are finding. Check out the 'Explore' feature on the iNat tool bar. I use the term Salish Sea to define the location I search. A vast majority of the observations being posted are of mushrooms. It would seem our local experts are coming out of the woodwork in response to the flurry of mushroom activity. I even had noted author Noah Siegel ID one of my fungus. But you have to give them something to work with.

The best way to photo document a mushroom is to get a good shot of the cap that represents the color, shape and texture. Then turn the cap over to document the gills and how they meet the stipe. Then get a shot of the whole length of the stipe. Sometimes the bulb is diagnostic. Finally, you might want to also take a spore print. Place the cap on a strip of dark paper to catch white and light colored spores, and a strip of white paper to catch dark spores.

Posted on November 6, 2018 03:54 AM by kurtsteinbach kurtsteinbach

Comments

I was out walking Sunday morning in the park just off of fort gate road and was quite astounded by the number and diversity of mushrooms. Way beyond my novice identification skill. And the debris littered shady forest floor near our cabin was just cloaked with tiny white mushrooms, something I haven’t noticed before. Thanks for confirming that this is a big year.

Posted by dmcl over 5 years ago

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