Good evening, friends,
This week's Mushroom Monday is going to have a bit of a different format. Instead of highlighting one specific fungus, we're gonna look at a handful of the neatest mushrooms we (John, Gabriela, and I) found while exploring El Yunque and Puerto Rico. We took a red eye back this morning and my brain is kind of like pudding, but we're gonna see if I can't get a few neurons and synapses firing on this balmy Monday evening.
Before we dive into the mushroom pics, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention two of the coolest fungal experiences we had were with other humans. Our shepherd for a good portion of the mushrooming was Kurt Miller (fungi_pr on instagram and here on mushroomobserver), who identified basically all of the mushrooms we'll look at tonight. He was incredibly smart and incredibly generous. A happy - and a touch blurry - pic of the four of us with a full moon rising between our heads (Kurt on the left):
We also had the privilege of stopping at Wild Culture mushrooms in Aguada and meeting Max and Miku. This was the first mushroom store any of us had been in and it was stunning. You could get fresh mushrooms or meals a la carte, but their were also lifestyle and educational sections you could browse - all while sipping an iced cordyceps Thai tea from their cafe. One of the neatest stores I've ever been in - you can check them out online too. A picture with Miku, Max, and the rest of us:
Without further ado, let's get into a highlight reel of some of our finest fungal finds. Kurt identified essentially all of these for us.
Lycoperdon fuligineum - a purple puffball!
Penicillium sp. - growing on a palm fruit
Pluteus rubrotomentosus - a red pluteus was quite novel to us
Psilocybe caerulescens - a psychoactive species
Phaeoclavulina cyanocephala - very neat seeing this blue coral mushroom that turned black in KOH
Some sort of Ramaria or Ramariopsis - I don't necessarily remember
Genus Leptonia
Genus Gymnopilus
And last but not least. A snail seeming to eat some ganoderma:
This week was mostly pictures - I figured I'd just play the hits this Monday post-PR. Maybe we'll dive into one of these more next week ;)
Hope everyone enjoyed the equinox yesterday - spring has sprung!
-Aubrey