More of the same

It's a mushroomy year, here on the island. In a Facebook group I contribute to, Field Naturalists of Vancouver Island, every second post these days seems to be a collection of mushrooms. Here's another half dozen to be added to the pool.

More Laughing Gyms, I think. On a mossy log.

Red-belted polypore, Fomitopsis mounceae. The black lines are the borders of individual fungal colonies.

More polypores. The same as above? I'm not sure.

Orange mushrooms. Laccaria sp.? And a little Mycena sp.

Short-stemmed Russula, Russula brevipes.

New white mushroom, unidentified.

It's raining. As usual. Calling up more mushrooms.

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Este año se puede llamar el año del hongo, especialmente aquí en la isla. En un grupo de Facebook, Field Naturalists of Vancouver Island, donde soy una contribuyente, la mitad de los posts en estos dias parecen ser otro grupo de hongos. Bueno, aquí hay otra media docena que voy a subir.

1. "Gimnasio hilarante ", Gymnopilus ventricosus. En un tronco cubierto de musgos.
2. Fomitopsis mounceae. Las lineas negras en la madera son los bordes de colonias individuales de hongos.
3. Otros poliporos, que pueden o no ser de la misma especie de los anteriores.
4. Los hongos anaranjados pueden ser Laccaria sp. El honguito es una Mycena sp., creo.
5. Russula brevipes.
6. Y un hongo blanco, sin identificación. 

Está lloviendo, como siempre. Haciendo más hongos.

In mushroom heaven

Soil composed of rotting wood, leftover evergreen needles and cones, dead leaves (mostly Big-leaf maple), and water. Always water; does this soil ever dry out? I doubt it. Add a carpet of several layers of dying maple leaves over a base of moss. Sopping wet, of course; it's been raining most days lately.

Between these two layers, wet soil and dripping leaves, it's mushroom heaven. These are some of the ones I saw in Kitty Coleman Provincial Park this week.

Amanita muscaria, the fly amanita. So poisonous, but so pretty!

One of the Russulas. These mushrooms open up while they're still underground, then push their way up carrying a load of the dirt that covered them. This one even kept a few stones.

Coral mushroom, probably the Upright Coral, Ramaria stricta.

Dyer's polypore, Phaeolus schweinitzii.

And the very common Red-belted polypore, Fomitopsis mounceae. I don't know how these got so stained, high up out of the splash zone on the tree.

While this one, and its neighbours, near the ground, are all pure white underneath.

I'm leaving a couple for tomorrow.

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Un suelo compuesto de madera podrida, agujas viejas y piñas de los árboles coníferos, hojas muertas principalmente de arce de hoja grande, y agua. Siempre hay agua; ¿se secará alguna vez este terreno? Lo dudo. Encima de esto, una alfombra de varias capas de hojas recién caídas sobre una base de musgos. Empapada esta alfombra, claro; llueve casi todos los dias en esta temporada.

Entre estas dos capas. tierra mojada y hojas hechas sopa, hay un paraíso para los hongos. Estos  son unos de los que vi esta semana en el parque provincial Kitty Coleman.

1. Amanita muscaria. Tan tóxicos, pero ¡tan bellos!
2. Uno de los russulales. Estos hongos se forman completamente bajo la superficie del suelo, y luego se alzan, trayendo consigo la tierra que los cubría. Este se trajo hasta unas piedritas.
3. Hongo coralino, probablemente Ramaria stricta.
4. El poliporo de los tintoreros, Phaeolus schweinitzii.
5. El muy común poliporo de cinta roja, Fomitopsis mounceae. No entiendo como es que estos terminaron tan manchados, creciendo allá arriba en el tronco, a una buena distancia del suelo.
6. Cuando estos, apenas unos 30 a 50 cm. del suelo todos resultaron tan limpios.

Dejo unos hongos para mañana; hongos parásitos.

'Tis the season

With the onset of the rains, we're in mushroom season again. Yesterday, in 14 minutes in a friend's front yard, we found 7 different species of mushrooms, and one possible slime mold. Here are some of them.

Mycena sp., probably. Growing among Sedum sp.

Earthballs, Scleroderma sp. And maybe that slimy white stuff is a slime mold. Or not. Another fungus, maybe?

One untouched by the slime, unbroken.

At first I thought these were puffballs. But no, these, though brown already, don't puff. They're a look-alike, earthballs. (Poisonous, by the way; puffballs are edible and delicious.) And then they look like the ones I found growing a crack in the cement steps nearby a couple of  years ago; I thought then that they were earthstars, but still in the same genus as the earthballs, Schleroderma. I think, now, that they're the same ones, having just found a more comfortable setting, under landscaping shrubs.

Earth ball fungi possess three key characteristics that differentiate them from other (puffball) species:

1. The outer skin is tough and thick.

2. Their interior spore surface either starts out dark purplish-black or matures to that color. Even with ones that start out white, there is usually some staining or indication that the interior is not going to remain white.

3. They are attached to their underground mycelium network through thin mycelial strands that resemble little roots. (From Mushroom Appreciation)

Checking: 1. Yes. I poked several, to see if they puffed, then to examine the insides. (Wet and mushy). The skin was resilient.

2. All the ones I opened were black inside.

3. I didn't think to pull one up to look at the base. Next time.

One of the Scleroderma sp. that is reported on iNaturalist in this area is the Potato Earthball. That looks like a potato. Like that photo above. None of the reports, however, have been confirmed as to species; this is a difficult genus. I've just posted mine as Earthballs, not to be overly confident.

Knights, Genus Tricholoma, suggests iNaturalist.

More of the same, in the Sedum patch.

More, tomorrow.

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Ya que han empezado las lluvias, estamos otra vez en la temporada de los hongos. Ayer, en solamente 14 minutos (tenía una cita, y no pude buscar más) en el césped de una amiga, encontramos 7 especies distintas de hongos, y posiblemente un moho mucilanigoso. Aquí hay algunos.

  1. Mycena sp. probablemente. Con ramas de Sedum sp.

  2. Bolas de tierra, Scleroderma sp.. Y esa capa blanca puede ser un moho mucilaginoso. O no. Tal vez otro tipo de hongo.

  3. Una bola de tierra entera y sin moho.

Al principio, creí que eran hongos polvera. Pero no lo son; estos aunque estén ya maduros y color café no producen polvo al tocarlos. Son un hongo parecido; bolas de tierra. (Tóxicos; y los hongos polveras son comestibles y deliciosos.) Más se parecen a los que encontré hace un par de años en las grietas de los escalones de cemento a unos pasos de distancia. Pensaba, entonces, que eran estrellas de tierra (el mismo género, Scleroderma). Ahora llego a creer que son los mismos, que ahora se han encontrado un habitat más cómodo bajo los arbustos que rodean el césped.

Los hongos Bola de Tierra tienen tres características clave que los distinguen de otras especies. (Los hongos polvera.)

1. El peridio (pared exterior) es grueso y resistente.

2. La superficie interior o empieza de un color oscuro entre morado y negro o al madurar toma ese color. Aun con los que empiezan siendo blancos, hay algún tinte o alguna indicación que el color blanco no es permanente.

3. Están conectados con su red de micelios por medio de hilos delgados que parecen ser raices pequeñas. (De Mushroom Appreciation)

Comprobando: 1. Sí. Toqué varios, con alguna fuerza, primero para ver si emitían polvo, luego para examinar la materia interior (que estaba mojada y con una textura como de avena cocida). El peridio era bastante resistente.

2. La masa interior de todos los que abrí era negra.

3. No se me ocurrió arrancar uno para mirar las raices. Para la próxima.

Una de las especies de Scleroderma que veo documentado en la isla en iNaturalist es la Bola de Tierra Papa. Que se parece a una papa. Como en esa foto arriba. (#4) En ninguna de esas observaciones, sin embargo, se han confirmada la especie; este es un género difícil. Yo solamente subí mis fotos llamándolas Bolas de Tierra, por no presumir de saber con exactitud.

  4. El programa de iNaturalist sugiere que este hongo pertenece al género Tricholoma.

  5. Y otros de la misma especie, con plantitas de Sedum sp.

Dejo otros para mañana.

The Buttle Lake road

I had a free afternoon, so I drove out to Buttle Lake, just exploring. It's a long lake, 23 kilometres long, 1.5 across; more like a slow, wide river than a lake. A narrow road winds down the west side; it only connects to the highway on one end. I usually sail right past the entrance, on my way to Gold River. This time, I drove on in.

Buttle Lake runs down the centre of the Island, halfway between Campbell River and Gold River (the towns, not the rivers).

I had to keep stopping to look at the view and to poke around rock faces, so I only made it two thirds of the way down the west side of the lake before it was time to turn back. Even so, I saw many places that I must return to, with more time available; trail heads, shore access, mossy rocks, waterfalls. And at the end of the road, on this west bank, there's a mine site to visit and then Myra Falls. I'll be back.

At my last stop, Auger Point, I followed a short trail down to the shore, then poked through the bush, looking at mushrooms. (Photos, next post.)

BC's bush is challenging, at best. Here's a photo from Auger Point, taken from the trail, as shot, uncropped, with only a bit of sharpening added.

18 mushrooms, yellow, white, beige. That I can see from here. There will be more under and behind everything.

Late early mushrooms

I've been looking for mushrooms since the rains started, but with little luck. So I looked at the last two years' posts; in 2016, I was finding many mushrooms around here since the last week of September, earlier on visits north and west. But in 2017, they started to show up near the end of October, and in greatly reduced numbers.

This year, it looks like we're following last year's schedule. I found a very few last week; half a dozen puffballs in a patch that is usually thick with them, three small brownish ones on Tyee Spit.

And finally, this Wednesday, a short walk near Woodhus Creek turned up a crop of varied 'shrooms.

Down in the moss, a brown mushroom with purplish stripes. With an unidentified critter poking his head out from behind.

One puffball, already gone to spores. There were two others in the vicinity.

Mushrooms often grow in the shadiest, dimmest parts of the woods, and even there, they hide under logs or in the shelter of deep moss. The camera doesn't like this; there's not enough light to get a clean photo. But you can't use flash; most of the light-coloured mushrooms concentrate and reflect all the light, so that everything but the mushroom comes out nicely, but the mushrooms are a featureless glare. Puffballs are the worst. I was lucky to find one in a ray of filtered sunlight.

Tiny, delicate, pinkish mushrooms on a log. With a young sowbug. There were many of these.

A foot-long piece of burnt branch with a topping of moss, nurtured these tiny tongues, most under 1/2 cm. long.

Getting down close. The bases are a greyish blue, the tops pure white.

No mushrooms here. Leaf lichen with fruiting bodies on a dead twig, and Oregon grape leaves.

I met another mushroom hunter along this trail. He was looking for chanterelles, that he has found in large quantities here in previous years. Not this year; he hadn't seen one.