Mushroom Monday - Some Random Finds

Here are some random finds for this #mushroommonday

The first find is a common ink cap.

There are quite a few different versions of ink cap mushrooms, most are edible but don't taste very good and worse yet they don't cook very well. The only way to really cook them is in soups otherwise they will just melt into black goo.

The scales on the caps indicate these are scaley ink caps aka Coprinopsis variegata.

Next up is some chocolate tube slime mold with a Latin name of Stemonitis splendens. This stuff is fairly common but easily overlooked as it usually only forms in really tiny bunches like this. Every now and then you can find a big clump of it but it is somewhat rare as the wind will usually destroy the big bunches of it.

This weird slime is called black jelly roll. The Latin name is Exidia glandulosa and you can find it along with all the other jelly roll fungi right after a rain on broken hardwood branches. This stuff is edible but only good in soups with spices as a texture because none of the jelly fungi have a taste to them.

Here is another slime mold with a common name of yellow slime mold. If you find this early on it will grow in a veiny pattern but as it feeds then the whole dead wood it is feeding off of will get covered like this.

Here is a common sight in the summer. They call these summer oysters with a Latin name of Pleurotus ostreatus. These are a good mild tasting edible with a great texture for cooking. If you don't want to forage for them in the wild they are often found in grocery stores or you can buy kits to grow them easily on your kitchen counter with just a bit of misting a few times a day.

Here is a UFO... At first glance I thought they might of been winter mushrooms as they have a dark velvety foot and orange caps. But it is way to early for these to be growing as they are supposed to grow during winter. Also the gill pattern and upturned caps isn't really a feature of winter mushrooms. There is also some strange white mold growing on them as well.

Here is some Ductifera pululahuana aka white jelly fungus. This is also edible but unlike most jelly fungi this one has a really bad texture to cook with so it really isn't worth harvesting. Also the bugs really love this stuff and will burrow deep into the folds so it definitely is not worth the time cleaning it especially since it is bland and has no taste.

That's all for now, happy #mushroommonday :-)