Duuuude. Shrooms!

[temporus]

No, not those kind of mushrooms.  Well, at least I don't think so.  These are wild mushrooms that are springing up all around my yard. I don't know what kinds of mushrooms any of these are, but there seems to be a broad variety of them growing in my neighborhood.  As a kid, I'd notice the occasional small grey mushroom, but nothing like the number and variety we've got here.

I started taking pics, because I want to know what's growing in the area.  My son is quite happy to eat most things, and is young enough that you can't really tell him not to eat wild mushrooms and expect that he'll listen.  Just the other day, we noticed some small yellow mushrooms on the berm between our driveway and the neighbor's, and as I stopped to look, my son ran over and plucked it.  He had it halfway up to his face, whether just to look, or possible to examine via the mouth, I don't know.   But that's what sparked up my interest.  

As a general rule, I don't eat mushrooms.  I used to joke that I don't eat fungi, spores, or molds.  I've somewhat expanded my palate slightly, and will on occasion deal with mushrooms, though I much prefer not to eat them.  (Though the cloud's ear mushroom you get in Moo Shu isn't so bad.) And I'll occasionally dip a bit into a blue cheese, though again, not exactly my preference.  In any case, I don't have plans to go eating any of these.  But, sadly, my neighbor whose hobby was studying NJ fungi, has passed on, and I have no one I know to ask.  So, anyone who reads this, and knows anything, please feel free to comment, and let me know what you think they are.  

These are, by no means the only ones in my area, just the ones that are growing right about now.  I'll dump the rest behind a cut to spare the spammage.  You should be able to click on the pics for the enormous versions.

	Grey Mushroom This is the top of a grey mushroom. No idea what this is yet.
	Grey Mushroom This one, the cap hasn't flattend out all the way.
	Same Grey Mushroom This is the same one as above, taken the next morning.
	Big Grey Mushroom This is a larger version, of the same type
	Big Grey Mushroom again Here it is plucked so you can see the stem and underside of the cap.
	Big Grey Mushroom once more From a different angle
	Little cups No idea what these are. But they are some type of very small cup shaped mushroom.
	More cups? Not sure if these are also cups, or just more of the small yellow mushrooms before they shoot up.
	A small red A lot of these just started popping up in the lawn. Not sure what they are, would like to know. Red, in general sends up a warning flag of maybe these are dangerous.
	Again the red. This photo used the flash.
	Small Red A different shot.
	Larger red I noticed that these have kept growing, as this morning's "crop" are even bigger and more numerous than yesterday's.
	Bigger Reds
	A pale Red, looks almost yellow.
	A little colony of reds. These, unlike the larger grey mushrooms seems to cluster like this. The other shots don't show it as well.
	The colony.
	The underside of the reds The underside of the red capped mushroom reminds me of a sponge.
	Under the redcap Another shot of a different red mushroom's underside.
	Small grey These kind of remind me of the large grey ones, but they never seem to get bigger than this. Very small, stem thin as anything.
	Small Grey from the top The smaller grey ones.
	Another shot of greys These are just hanging around with my black clover.
	A small yellow. Unforuntately, this is the day after it shot up, and this one is mostly withered away.

Comments

[akaalysia.livejournal.com]

Strangely enough I know of some wild mushroom afficionados. I have passed this post along to them, and hopefully they can help you out with the identity crisis. :-) Good luck!

[temporus.livejournal.com]

Thankfully, it's not a true crisis, as we were right there, and able to keep my son from eating anything. But my understanding is that young children are the most common vicitims of mushroom poisoning, because they don't know any better. So, I think it's a good idea to know.

Duude.shrooms

[(Anonymous)]

Hello
My daughter sent me this link. I am not computer savvy. I am president of the New Jersey mycological association. Web page www.njmyco.org. If you go on the web page, you will find out about us and can contact us. We have forays nearly every week which are free and open to the public. If you come to one of our forays you will learn how to identify mushrooms and which ones are deadly. Back to your pictures... they are lousy pictures. The reason they are bad is because you have not photographed the whole mushroom. You need to take a knife and cut around the base of the mushroom. We identify mushroom by looking at the cap, stem and the base. The first set of mushrooms look very much like amanitas which are deadly but without a proper picture it is hard to tell. You also need to indicate the size of the mushroom and whether there were any trees growing nearby and whether there was a ring on the stem and how it is attached and the color of the spore print and the smell of the mushroom. The second bunch of pictures are of the bird's nest fungi and another little mushroom which grows with it which is nothing to worry about. The third set of photos are boletes of some sort. These do not have gills. The underside of the cap consists of pores and often feels sort of spongy. The mushrooms in this family will make you feel very sick but are not as dangerous as the amanitas. The last bunch are little lawn mushrooms which usually dry up when the sun comes up so they should not be a problem. If you have a kid crawling around there are lots of plants which are also toxic which can be growing in the grass as well as stuff you spray on the grass. Many of the weed killers are nerotoxins. You just have to keep and eagle eye on your kid and stay on top of him. If he should eat something, take a photo and bring a bag with the plant or mushroom to the ER room so first aid can be administed right away. I hope this is helpful. Nina Burghardt

Re: Duude.shrooms

[temporus.livejournal.com]

Thanks for taking the time to look. I was actually at your website over the weekend, seeing what I might be able to figure out myself.

As to trees nearby...how close would they need to be? I've a very large, pretty old Oak just on the other side of the driveway from where most of these are growing, especially the red ones/Boletes.

I think the problem is, that trying to take two minutes to snap some pics on the way out the door before work isn't the best method for identifying mushrooms.