On our first weekend of unemployment we visited our dear friends Ruth and Anthony up in Humboldt. They took us for a hike on a Forst Service Road in Cutlin, CA, where we saw TONS of different varieties of wild mushrooms. Here’s the ones we brought home:
[Note, the mushroom in my hand that Dan is eyeing is called “Witch’s Hat” – it is non edible in that it may be toxic and/or hallucinogenic… we admired it from afar and then composted it.]
To help identify the mushrooms (VERY IMPORTANT to do carefully and with the help of good books and professionals, as many are deadly toxic), we took spore prints. To take spore prints you lay out the mushroom heads on a sheet of paper:
After about 12 to 24 hours you return to the unmoved mushrooms and check out the beautiful designs they’ve left on your paper:
Each mushroom variety has its unique spore print, kind of like a finger print. And the color of the spores (and shape, if you choose to use a microscope) are essential to identifying the majority of mushrooms. Note that theyre seem to be blank spots on the sheet – that’s because some of the mushrooms we took prints of had white spores. They are better printed on colored paper.
Above is a photo of the Sullius caerulescens we collected. They are fantastic for dehydrating and grinding into powder for seasoning – and they are, clearly, very abundant along the central and northern coast of California.
This photo (above) shows the Lactarius deliciousus or “Delicious Milk Cap” we collected. They are unique for their orange colored bodies with green spots on top. Their gills bruise green and, like other Lactarius they lactate a creamy goo when their cap is injured. This mushroom is edible, but they were old so we just composted them.
The purple mushroom above is called “Shrimp Russula” or Russula xerampelina. It is apparently deliciously edible, but these were old and small and out of season so we composted them.
This mushroom may look like a delicious Chantrelle, but it’s actually a “Jack o’Lantern” or Omphalotus olivascens. It is poisonous! Oh well.
This incredibly beautiful set of mushrooms, we discovered, are actually called “Deadly Parasol”. Bummer! We decided to actually throw these out we were so scared of them.
In other news. I’ve also taken on learning to crochet:
(crocheted items not pictured, so as not to give away holiday gifts)
HORRAY for free time!
