An out of place mushroom

[z_willus_d]

I'm curious if anyone's encountered something like this in a new bag of potting soil? This Fox Farm's Light Warrior product -- usually sells for over $20 a 1.5Cuft bag. I'm wondering if this in the end result of a good spore or a baddy that somehow contaminated the bag. Interesting looking in any case.
-naysen

Originally Posted by z_willus_d

I'm curious if anyone's encountered something like this in a new bag of potting soil? This Fox Farm's Light Warrior product -- usually sells for over $20 a 1.5Cuft bag. I'm wondering if this in the end result of a good spore or a baddy that somehow contaminated the bag. Interesting looking in any case.
-naysen

It's a Saprotroph type meaning it thrives on decaying material. The photo isn't good enough to make an accurate identification. I really appreciate seeing mushrooms in my garden on newly added organic material. I've never seen mushrooms growing in the bag with potting soil of any type, but it doesn't surprise me if moisture was also present. For me, it is an indicator that the potting soil is nutritionally rich and should support plant life well.

If you really want to identify it, you need to lay the cap on a clean sheet of white paper with the gill side down overnight. In the morning, the paper under the cap should have changed colors to the spore color. That is a good identifying marker. Other markers are the shape and color and color pattern on the top of the cap. Another identifier is the shape, and color of the stem as well as the little ring on the stem where the cap was attached to the stem before it opened. Is the ring loose on the stem or still attached to the stem. Do each of the gills form a straight line from the outer edge of the cap all the way to the stem or do they connect with each other forming irregular lines from the edge to the stem. Each indicator can mean the difference between the identity of a poisonous mushroom and harmless mushroom. Most mushrooms are harmless but they are not considered edible because they taste like crap.

This is a web page with descriptions of many different mushroom types but it only scratches the surface of the thousands of types in our environment. The only iron clad rule in mycology is "If you are not absolutely sure what it is, don't eat it".

http://www.mushroom-appreciation.com...mushrooms.html

Ted

[Redbaron]

If only I could find a morel in a bag of potting soil?

Originally Posted by Redbaron

If only I could find a morel in a bag of potting soil?

Scott,

I've never seen a Morel this far south. I used to harvest bushel baskets of Chanterel mushrooms on my four wheeler in the Piney Woods of East Texas. I also got a lot of Oyster mushrooms which are great to eat. I think folks in Indiana and farther north call them Elephant Ear mushrooms One of the most common in my area that is excellent to eat is the giant puffball. It has to be harvested while still young before the black spores form on the inside. I've seen them growing in the hot sun in dry, dirt parking lots. They look like little soccer balls laying on the ground.

Ted

[Redbaron]

What's a chanterel? I have eaten all the others and a few more, but never even heard of chanterel.

Scott,

Here is a link to a Chanterell description page. It is one of my favorites, tasting kind of fruity like apricots. There is also one known as the false Chanterell because it looks almost identical to the true Chanterell. It won't hurt you, but it doesn't taste good at all. I've seen Chanterell mushrooms in the woods of southern and south eastern Oklahoma as well as East Texas. They like humidity and summer heat around Oak trees. They are usually abundant for a couple of weeks in mid summer to early fall after heavy rains.

http://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/chanterelles.html

Ted

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by tedln

Scott,

Here is a link to a Chanterell description page. It is one of my favorites, tasting kind of fruity like apricots. There is also one known as the false Chanterell because it looks almost identical to the true Chanterell. It won't hurt you, but it doesn't taste good at all. I've seen Chanterell mushrooms in the woods of southern and south eastern Oklahoma as well as East Texas. They like humidity and summer heat around Oak trees. They are usually abundant for a couple of weeks in mid summer to early fall after heavy rains.

http://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/chanterelles.html

Ted

I think I will try to find some next summer. Thanks

[carolyn137]

Great memories here of going mushrooming with my mother and her relative Edith Rockenstyre in Edith's cow pastures. Had to make sure someone knew what they were doing to avoid anything toxic.

And oh yes, I have some out of place muchrooms here at home. THey pop up between the one center sliding door and the screen next to it in a space about two inches wide. No way to get to them and maybe that's just as well, b'c I absolutely love mushrooms. I guess that tells you that there's enough dirt in that space to support their growth. So be it.

When I was a kid my father would bring home these oval wooden boxes from the farmer's wholesale market where he took everything we grew on the farm, and those baskets were packed full of the typical white button ones that were grown in caves just south of Albany.

And right now I can't think of the specific name of the ones that folks buy in the store as a substitute for meat b'c they say they taste just like a good ground chuck used for hamburger. I haven't tried them yet but I don't think they sell them at the store where Martha does my grocery shopping for me.

Carolyn

[tam91]

Portabellas maybe Carolyn?

I have hen of the woods that grow on my property, and a giant puffball once in a while. Both delicious, but I'd love some chantarelle's or morels.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by tam91

Portabellas maybe Carolyn?

I have hen of the woods that grow on my property, and a giant puffball once in a while. Both delicious, but I'd love some chantarelle's or morels.

Thanks Tam, Portabellas it is.

When I first moved up to this new place for me there was what was called the mushroom facotry on rt 313 that goes from Cambridge, NY to Arlington, VT and they raised all kinds of mushrooms and you could go there to buy them, but that was just for the locals. They were commercial and sent them to many outlets that distributed them to retail places.

But a huge fire destroyed the whole complex, and thus no cheap wonderful mushrooms for all of us in the area forever more, thus quoth the raven ( sorry, couldn't help myself this AM on the raven bit).

A place in the small village near where I live makes a wild mushroom soup, which is out of this world, trust me on that.

Carolyn

[mdvpc]

I get mushrooms popping up in my potting soil in the greenhouse. I dont know what they are, and just pull them out. Made a mushroom/barley soup last night with porcini and crimini.

My favorite hamburger has always been one with the meat patty replaced with a giant, grilled Portabella mushroom.

Scott,

I would usually find small patches of Chanterell mushrooms when I would be hunting wild hogs on foot in the forest. I wouldn't gather those, but I would remember the locations. After a heavy rain event, I would return to those locations on my four wheeler with a large cardboard box. The small areas would have grown into large areas with hundreds or thousands of mushrooms growing. I would select the best mushrooms from each location leaving ninety percent behind to reproduce. In areas where a small, spring fed, stream produced marshy areas, I could harvest mushrooms all summer long into fall. Fallen tree trunks produced great oyster mushrooms after the tree trunks had rotted for three or four years.

Carolyn,

I hope you were not harvesting the mushrooms directly from the cow pattys. Those are the ones kids harvest when the are "shrooming" to make tea which is very, very hallucinogenic. You get a trip almost equal to LSD from them.

Ted

[z_willus_d]

Ted, your descriptions of hog and mushroom hunting under the forests has given me visions of the Thoreau existence or even Tom Bombadil to get more fantastic. Are you his long lost brother?

I've encountered mushroom hunting in the habits of a few individuals that I've encountered in my life here in California -- a winemaker, a herbalist living in the east hills, a stranger. I'd always took note that the activity seemed at once compelling and something I absolutely wanted to learn more of and some day engage as a hobby or obsession. The other that comes to mind is bee husbandry. Ok there are many, let's say a chicken hatchery comes to mind too. All of these seem less than accessible in the heart of suburbia in which I've been entrapped; but when a mushroom comes a knocking like a gift from the stork, it gives one pause that on reflection suggests perhaps there are ways to engage in these more pastoral or forest man activities, even for one such as I.

As for the unidentified Saprotroph, my wife was quick to see it for a decaying spore perhaps dangerous to a toddler, and so it was promptly disposed in the large outdoor trash-bin.

-naysen

Nope, not a Thoreau existence and no Waldens pond. We did have a large spring fed waterfall with a large pond below it that was icy cold in the hottest of summers. We had a lot of weekend visitors who wanted to swim in the pond. That was great for me because we love having friends around. We also had a natural eight acre pond next to the house that contained some really large alligators so no swimming in it. Instead of imagining Thoreau, imagine someone who bores easily and would much prefer to be outside doing something than watching television in the house. We were blessed to live in the middle of a large forest. When I walked fifty feet from my front door, I was in the forest. Hurricane Rita changed all of that and convinced us to travel around in an RV for a couple of years. Great memories though. We once had an air conditioning service man ask if we were hiding from the law because we lived so far back in the woods. He suggested we should be growing marijuana because no one would ever find it.

When I first became interested in mushrooms, I joined the Gulf Coast Mycological Society and bought a lot of books with color plates of mushrooms. That was before Al Gore invented the internet. Today, I have no idea where all my books are and the internet is probably the best resource for mushroom information. It would be impossible to list, describe, or illustrate all the mushrooms in this country in a few books. As I said earlier, you don't eat them if you can't absolutely identify them.

Ted

[bower]

Naysen, it's no joke that hunting edible mushrooms is a compulsion, if anything even worse than growing tomatoes! It's been a major sport for me for over 30 years, but I have not much knowledge of the saprotrophic garden species, being more or less obsessed with mycorrhizal types which are the best edibles in the forest here - golden chanterelles, winter chanterelles, matsutake, hedgehogs and the scattered boletes. They provide the excuse for long hikes in untamed areas, just when the garden is holding its own or winding down.... it's perfect. And I never get chased by cows!

Garden saprotrophs tend to belong to difficult groups, where it's necessary to have expert knowledge to distinguish edible from poisonous ones - in any case, they aren't common enough in my garden for me to have gotten to know many of them.

For a great field guide, see David Arora's "Mushrooms Demystified". I had a quick look through the key, and my best guess on the basis of the photo (without a spore print, as tedln says, critical to identify unknowns) is that your mystery mushroom with white gills, annulus, and bright yellow on the stem and cap belongs to the Lepiota group. http://www.mushroomexpert.com/lepiota.html, and maybe this one or a close relative, common in potting soil: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/leucocoprinus_birnbaumii.html

Your wife's instinct is right, to dispose of it where a toddler won't be tempted. Older children can be taught to admire, but not eat em!