We’re down to one contributor (fortunately, Rik Gern, who sent today’s photos has several submissions), but I’d appreciate your good wildlife photos if you have them. Thanks!
As I said, Rik Gern, from Austin Texas, sent some photos, and they’re of fungi. Rik’s captions and IDs are below, and you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.
Here is a collection of four mushroom species found in Wisconsin’s north woods last September, as identified by iNaturalist.
Our first specimen is an Earthy powdercap (Cystoderma amianthinum). The environment in which I found it was in accordance with Wikipedia’s description (“damp mossy grassland, in coniferous forest clearings”), but an image search made me dubious. Perhaps some well informed readers can weigh in. Whatever its true identity, it was plentiful in mossy clearings.
Next we have three photos of the Funeral bell (Galerina marginata). The name provides a not-so-subtle clue that the mushroom is highly poisonous and should not be consumed.
I love the coloring on the cap of the Fragile brittlegill (Russula fragilis):
The last mushroom in this set, Fly agaric (Amanita muscaria, four photos) is a classic storybook/fairytale mushroom! It’s supposed to have psychotropic effects once you boil away the toxins, but I’ll leave it to the more dedicated cosmic cowboys to test that hypothesis. Judging from the pictures on Wikipedia, I’d guess that his one is the subspecies flavivolvata, known as American fly agaric:
It says “Amanita muscaria establishes ectomycorrhizal symbioses predominantly with trees in the Betulaceae family, such as birch (Betula spp.), and the Pinaceae family, including pines (Pinus spp.), firs (Abies spp.), and spruces (Picea spp.).”
… so the pine needles make sense!
Nice pictures from the dark, dank forest. Thank you!
Lovely photos with excellent technical skills to enjoy (both image-making and processing – yeah, I admit to being a photo nerd!)
“Fragile brittlegill ” is a wicked cool name, but perhaps it should also be known as the strawberry meringue pie? ;>D
I’m always amazed the weird shapes fungi grow into.
Wonderful photos! Thanks.
A fine set! I expect you had to lay down in the forest to take these, and I can totally relate to that!
Yes, and occasionally, if it was near a road a hiker would express concern for my well being. I did that once myself; I saw a man lying face down on the ground and fishtailed my car into a U turn to see if he’d fallen from a heart attack only to discover a father taking pictures of his children thru a field of bluebonnets.
The Fly agaric needs a caterpillar smoking a hookah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterpillar_(Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland)#/media/File:Alice_05a-1116×1492.jpg
Beautiful photos!
Quite an assortment there!
In the second photo of the fragile brittlegill, it looks as though something has been dining on the left side of the upper surface. A slug, perhaps?
These are beautiful! Fly agaric has been used for psychedelic purposes in many places, esp. Siberia, for….ever almost.
I’m not sure if they’re “magic” – my studies, reading and experience have been in LSD. Psylocibin (from “magic mushrooms”) is a poor cousin – dosage and effect wise – of the lab produced original LSD. Both work on the same brain locus thought via Serotonin H2A receptors.
Magic mushrooms, though, often cause so much nausea people mistake that for ….the trip. Poison – of any flavor – can be “psychedelic” and mushrooms have evolved chemicals to dissuade animals from eating them.
The actual aesthetics of fungi are excellent, as you catch here.
Thank you,
D.A.
NYC
Nice photos!
Sometimes, though, agaric is just agaric, as Dr Feu once said.