once-vast genus collybia , collybia cookei grows from the ground or from the blackened remains of other, larger mushrooms. its stems are attached to "sclerotia"--little knots of tissue buried in the substrate. you'll need to pry around and uncover the sclerotia if you want to identify collybia cookei...
. deconica argentina, like its better-known cousin deconica coprophila, is "coprophilous," meaning it pops up in piles of dung—usually the dung of horses or cows. mmmm, mmmm, mmmm. if you know these mushrooms, you really know your $#!...
, is easily separated from the others on the basis of its size and its stem. three other north american species, often treated broadly as "sarcoscypha coccinea" in field guides, are more difficult to separate, and may require microscopic analysis for identification. all four are keyed out below. key...
kuo this beautiful mushroom is found in california's coast redwood forests, over winter. it features a deep blue, slimy cap that quickly turns dark red--then slowly fades to dull yellowish. its stem is also slimy. the mushroom is essentially a blue-then-red version ofthe well known "parrot mushroom...
(or, better said, "squats") out from the crowd with its gray cap and seemingly truncated stem, which is much shorter in proportion to the width ofthe cap than the stems of most melanoleucas. microscopic features (see below) include funky, harpoon-tipped, frequently septate cystidia. description: ecology...
are held in tubes--rather like the tubes ofthe boletes , except that with some exceptions the tube layer of a polypore cannot be easily removed as a layer, the way it can with a bolete. aside from the fact that many of them are attractive and interesting mushrooms, polypores are of special interest...
copious, and it almost seems to pour out ofthe mushroom when you slice it or damage the gills. in other species the milk can be scanty to almost nonexistent--especially in older specimens that have grown in dry weather. a few mushrooms in other genera exude a juice (for example, mycena haematopus )...
semiovatus is one ofthe larger species of panaeolus , and it grows on horse dung. its whitish to buffy tan cap is slimy when fresh, and it is the only panaeolus species that features a ring (albeit a flimsy one) on the stem. panaeolus separatus is a synonym. some mycologists place panaeolus semiovatus...
set ofthe lord ofthe rings. the undersurface ofthe cap is densely fuzzy, separating helvella crispa from helvella lactea, which is also whitish but features a smooth undersurface. casual research does not uncover the origin ofthe sometimes-applied common name "elfin saddles" for species of helvella...
mushrooms , ampulloclitocybe clavipes is distinguished by its brownish cap, its white spore print, its frequently bulbous stem, its (usual) preference for conifers, and microscopic features (including its smooth spores and the presence of clamp connections)--which means that the species is not very...