Well folks… it’s shroom season in the Northwest…

We were gallivanting about in the woods yesterday 10/17/23, taking one of our daily constitutionals.. a 5.5 mile hike through several of the Port Ludlow trails. It has been wet since we returned from our shoulder season cruise and the mushrooms are beginning to poke their little and big heads out of their earthly lairs to spread spores around the countryside. I took many pictures. The winner of my photo gallery is this lovely, but deadly Amanita Muscaria. Just a sitting there… bold as brass, a few steps from the marina. Cute as can be… Well, as I tell Leo often enough: “Leave it!”. And as the Beetles said: “Let it be…”.

The next candidate is a reasonable runner up for most interesting: Shaggy Mane, AKA Horse Mushroom. Delicious. But… you have to eat them within a couple of hours after picking or they dissolve into a black inky goo. The goo can be used to write with or to dye cloth. Hmmm… food or dye… or both.

I’m not exactly sure, and one needs to be certain about identification with shrooms… but I believe this is a relatively young Oyster Mushroom. Or it could be a Hedgehog. Being not exactly sure… I would never eat one, but Oyster shrooms can be delicious. Look alike shrooms can be deadly:

Next up… the Common Stump Brittlestem edible when cooked. Or is it the deadly Galerina (AKA funeral bell, or skullcap) or another shroom practicing cryptic coloration. No guessing now! As George Carlin once cryptically stated: “Is it cake or is it meat?”:

Next up… the Candy mushroom. It is said to have the flavor of Butterscotch or maple sugar. It is used as a sweetener in soups and other gastronomic delights:

Ahhh… and the last offering: The Giant Funnel (Leucopaxillus gigantus) Quite large and prolific… 5 to 8 inches across. And in our neck of the woods… something was eating them. A deer… squirrel… coyotes… who knows. Something finds them tasty.

Thought you might like to see these…

And today, 10/18/23 we did a similar hike. Hike or gym we mused. A 65 degree sunny day demanded a hike. At the beginning of the hike Les said: “Well at least today we can do a hike without you stopping every 100 feet to snap pictures of shrooms”. Well… hereare some snaps from the 18th: