Tuesday, December 21, 2010

waxy cap ~ 12/21/10 ~ Mt. Madonna


waxy cap with coast redwood needles
Hygrocybe sp. with Sequoia sempervirens needles
more information
Cupressaceae

Oh my goodness, this was one of the most challenging posts on Nature ID! I know next to nothing about fungi, except that I like eating those button mushrooms from the grocer when sauteed in butter. Funny enough, I had a sudden craving for mushroom soup, similar to whenever I spy a crab and have a hunkering to eat crab.

It's taken me a couple days to sort through my hundreds of fuzzy fungi pics. Rain, dark forest lighting, and not being as steady as I could be after hiking up and down hills, versus a leisurely stroll, made for poor quality photos. I picked the best pics to post here.

I'd certainly appreciate any ID help from anyone out there. Whenever I could, I've embedded links above to the 3 best online fungi ID sites I've found so far: Mushroom Hobby, The Fungi of California, and Mushroom Expert. For additional pictures, I'm also posting to Flickr.

ps 01/01/11 - Thanks to John Wall, I've edited, corrected, and added to the above IDs. He has an incredible photo set on Flickr called the Mt. Tam Mushroom Project. Mt. Tam is a couple hours further northwest than Mt. Madonna, but both places seem to have similar habitats.

ps 09/03/11 - I'm separating out these pictures, so each fungus has its own entry. They can be seen in newer entries to this one from this hiking date, or check out * all fungi.

4 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

You did really well, I think. Like me, I end up tossing away a lot of fuzzy photos too in order to get one or two good ones.

I like that false turkey feather. Pretty.

troutbirder said...

Wow very colorful. I don't know mushrooms at all (except for the occasional morel I collect when out troutfishing.) Say hi to your uncle for me! :)

John W. Wall said...

The top one is a waxy cap, and you have oyster mushrooms, and I'm not sure about your fly agaric. Are you sure it's not a red-capped russula?

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Thanks, twg. If only I could trash those fuzzy pics, but I keep thinking I'll do something artsy with them... someday. Ha!

Mr. T, I, too, was impressed by the colors. And, I'm seeing my uncle who's a fan of your blog on Sunday.

John, it's good to hear from you. Thanks for the 'shroom ID help. I posted another pic of what you think might be a red-capped russula on flickr. Could you take a look at it?

Well wishes for the new year to all!