Meet and Eat?

Where the grass is mown, I saw a lone mushroom the size of my palm, perfectly developed with a cap so artistic I left it untouched and came back later. It grew low to the ground and the underside and stem were not visible. Overturning the mushroom showed a smooth white stem and a white lace of pores instead of mushroom gills. This identified it as a bolete. Most are edible -- the prized Italian porcini mushroom (doesn't grow in Missouri) is a bolete. The pores are tubes. Now and then a bolete has six-sided pores. Not this one.

In situ

Bruised from handling

Spore print

Picking it, I removed the cap to make a spore print. This bolete cap bruised at a touch. To make a spore print, set white paper and black paper side by side and set the mushroom cap down the middle. This will then capture a spore print whether the spores are dark or light. The spore print can confirm an identification. This bolete's spores (after three hours) were a doughnut-brown.

What type of bolete? My guess is boletus chrysenteron, but I didn't cook and eat it because I'm not sure. Anyway, that summer day I was into it as an art object, and into the art it created by itself. They say that spore prints can be so lovely that people frame them. I put the cap back where I got it and hoped it had spores to spare, to replicate itself. It made me want not a mushroom but a doughnut.

Scarlet Elf Caps

Found behind the garage and marveled at: Red circlets tiny as drops of blood. They are Scarlet Cups or Scarlet Elf Caps (Sarcoscypha coccinea), mushrooms of early spring. Inedible. Found some more in the woods, tiny, beneath leafmeal. These must be the last of them, as they are often harbingers of spring. On the floral front, we are now seeing the last of the spring flowers, such as bluebells and phlox, and the first of the summer wildflowers, such as horsemint.

Who Was Here? What Did He Eat? Did It Taste Real Good?

Someone with a picky appetite dined here on the concrete block right in front of the propane tank, dining on a nice fresh lawn mushroom, but didn't finish it, and instead of just leaving it nice on the plate, flang it hither and yon. Probably a frustrated squirrel, from the mess of it, and it's pretty clear that raw mushroom is not his favorite meal. That's just too darn bad. It's going to have to eat what the rest of us eat, or it will be sent to bed without supper--or it will be shot, depending on my mood.

Monkey Face

If a professor sat me down to look at this picture and tell him what it is, I'd say, It's a monkey face, like those faces on sock monkeys, you know; but it's really fungi. Can't identify it precisely but suspect it's a Golden Jelly Cone just a bit dried out, or maybe it's the fungus called Orange Peel. There are, however, no names or quantities in Nature.

Middle-Aged Pleasures

I'm friends with a vigorous city couple in their 60s who visit the Divine property to "wildflower." They bring their manuals, he brings his camera and tripod, and they find flowers all day, reading aloud from the descriptions as they go. Definitely a middle-aged pleasure. I go along, but I'm looking for fungi. I get excited when I see them, collect them in photos which I then take home to I.D. "Divine likes fungi," the wildflower people explained to another friend, in the tone one uses politely to indicate that the person being mentioned is ever so slightly warped. Once after a rain I found ELEVEN different types of fungi just in my LAWN. I was in heaven. This fresh lovely fungus, found on a log, was so beautiful, but even after shredding two handbooks I can't get a sure I.D. on it: best I can do is Laetiporus sulphureus, "chicken of the woods."

Hen of the Woods

At the base of an oak tree, far into the woods, I found this "choice"-grade edible mushroom, Hen of the Woods (Grifola frondosa), my first ever. Was I thrilled! Recognized it at once from studying fungi manuals. Got the scale and weighed it in at 24+ ounces. Beautiful.

Deep Woods Mushrooms

Living in the Missouri oak and hickory forests, you learn how to read animal tracks and identify trees, how to beat poison ivy and where to find edible berries, and all about wild onions and greens. Now I'm starting to learn about one of the most mysterious of life forms: mushrooms and fungi. If you want, you can learn with me! Mushroom ID guides tend to be big and bulky -- so I just took photos and ID's them at home. Growing on the fallen log you see False Turkey Tail. The pink stem and beautiful tutu belong to the poisonous Sweating Mushroom -- I think -- or it may be a Bulgarica. I wouldn't think of eating any of them without having been formally introduced!