With the recent rain, all the plants are starting to come alive again. That includes others that depend on the plants. It’s mushroom time.
Mushrooms do taste good. They add something special to lots of dishes like quiche and spaghetti. Going out and picking some of those appearing in the woods now might be a deadly mistake.
I do have several mushroom guide books. That does not make me an expert. Gilled mushrooms especially are difficult for an amateur to identify positively.
That doesn’t mean I can’t go out and admire the various mushrooms in the woods. They come in so many shapes, colors and sizes.
These things don’t just appear. Underground is a wide network of filaments, the real organism. Some of these attach to tree roots, not as parasites, but as collaborators. The filaments gather water and minerals for the tree. The tree shares sugars with the filaments.
I came across two special ones. One was a little colony of orange red mushrooms only a couple of inches tall.
The other was a dead tree trunk decorated with white shelf mushrooms. Usually, I find these when they are a day or two old and dull. These were fresh with a delicate pinkish cast when light lit them from behind.
The chanterelles I was watching for were no where to be seen. Well, there were a couple barely the size of a quarter. These orange vase shaped mushrooms are easy to identify and very edible.
These and others are written about in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.
That is the best part of mushroom time: eating wild mushrooms. They are so much better than the button types sold in the market.
I only searched one hill. I have a few more to check out. Perhaps I will get lucky and find a patch of chanterelles.
If I’m really lucky, I’ll have a successful mushroom time and not find another nest of seed ticks.