Good evening, friends,
This past weekend I had the privilege of leading a couple mushroom walks at the Adirondack Museum’s Mushroom Mania. It was a blast and was definitely one of the best mushroom events I’ve ever attended. Thanks to Joe and the rest of the staff for organizing it, and I’m eager to get back up there next year.
Ciara and I continued the mania by backpacking for a couple of days in the high peaks wilderness. There were enough mushrooms in one square foot to occupy me for the two days, but today we’ll look at just some of the highlights. Play the hits, if you will.
Unfortunately, just as we’d gotten a comfortable distance from home and a u-turn was out of the question, I remembered my macro-photography camera was still on the charger. That left me with only the camera phone to document finds from the weekend, but on the bright side my camera is now fully charged. Still stoked to share everything so without further ado, the mushrooms of the Adirondacks:
Yellowfoots (Craterellus tubaeformis)
Hedgehogs (Hydnum spp.)
Piggyback shanklet (Collybia cirrhata)
While the camera sat this trip out, I did bring a UV light to look for UV fluorescence in the woods at night. That’s actually how I stumbled upon these tiny little mushrooms, they were glowing blue:
Stinking Earthfan (Thelephora palmata)
Eastern Destroying Angel (Amanita bisporigera)
Webcaps (Cortinarius spp.)
Gilled Bolete (Phylloporus spp.)
Orange Earthtongue (Microglossum rufum)
Stalked Puffballs (Lycoperdon spp.)
Chocolate Milky (Lactarius lignyotus complex)
Mosses
I have a fascination with the alpine zones - the areas of the mountains above the tree-line where the environmental conditions are extreme. These peaks are caked under ice and snow for at least half the year, exposed to unimaginable winds, but the amount of life that’s still able to exist up there is beyond impressive. Sure there were some mushrooms up there; Russulas, Laccarias, and others, but I want to give a shoutout to the mosses too.
Mountain firmoss (Huperzia appressa)
Interrupted clubmoss (Spinulum annotinum)
My dream is to one day do a fungal survey up in the alpine zone with permission from the DEC to collect and sequence their DNA (well give the mushrooms to someone who can sequence the DNA, I’m not a lab guy). Until then, we have pictures.
I’ve reached the threshold for email length so we’ll wrap it here. Have a great Labor Day weekend and fall fungi are right around the corner,
Aubrey
References:
Kuo, M. (2019, November). Microglossum rufum. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/microglossum_rufum.html
https://www.blueridgebotanic.com/blog/secret-stories-of-the-club-moss-lycopodium