Mushrooms are still around to be found. I get calls from the U of I Master Gardener plant disease clinic, where I volunteer. I got a call from an Eagle Hills family, regarding unusual (to them) growths in their border. I found Trametes sp. and Flammulina growing on the stump of a weeping birch. They were pleased to know that neither are poisonous and are merely eating the stump.

Bob Chehey

A Perfect Specimen

Krista Willmorth here.

My brother shared this beauty that he "found" while out camping this weekend. Try not to be too jealous. =) I am told that fresh specimens can often be found in cupboards and pantries throughout the year.
****** For all you mushroom lovers out there. Here is a shot of a deliciously roasted mushroom: Althaea Officinalis – more commonly known as the marshmallow.************

She is correct the Lepiota's are out.

Hello

This is Kevin. After seeing the Lepiota's at the meeting I checked one of my spots. There was nothing there two days ago. I had plenty to share with a neighbor. To bad LaReta isn't close I would have given her a couple so she doesn't think I am a mushroom hog.Thanks for the heads up Krista. Last year I hardly got any. My favorite spot hasn't started yet so there may be more to come.

Lepiota?

Hi, this is Krista W. Found these guys down by the Garden City greenbelt. I'm pretty sure they are a Lepiota, but I can't get a spore print (tried on black and white paper), so I'm not sure beyond that. My best guess is Macrolepiota rachodes.

They had lemon-yellow stains that you might see in the pictures. The stipe was partially hollow and stained yellow, then rusty red, when it was cut near the top. (The yellow staining was not persistent.) The stipe was white above what was left of the veil, and brown-striped below. No volva. The "warts" are cinnamon-colored and rub off easily. Smells nice. I might see if I can find another tomorrow that would give me a spore print.

Didn't have anything to show relative size in the picture - pileus about 10cm. Stipe about 10cm. Found in a cluster on wood chips.

Any thoughts?


*****Update: They have white spores*******

Thanks!
Krista

Hello

This is Kevin. I did real well for Kings in the McCall area this Saturday. We should have plenty of Shrooms for next week-end.

Lake Tahoe Foray

Hi, this is Sue from down in Nevada. Can you believe there are no mushroom clubs in Nevada? However, many forays are held near here hosted by the Bay Area clubs. The first one is the weekend after Labor day right here in Lake Tahoe. Any takers? I will let you know what I have found. I do know that morels come out about the same time as Idaho, so my schedule shouldn't have to change much! Have a great fall foray, and I will post pictures!

Baker City Herald write up on SIMA Anthony Lakes Foray July 2011

Adios for a while at least

It is with mixed feelings that I post this blog. I have accepted a job in Nevada as the state director of agricultural education so I am moving to Carson City. Bryan will be staying for a while, so hopefully he will still cook for the fall foray! Thanks for all the good memories, and I still hope to mushroom in the Sierra Nevadas! Keep this blog going so I can keep up with everyone....Best wishes to all....Sue Poland, the Cambridge connection.

Frankfurt, Germany Mushrooms

When I arrived in Frankfurt three weeks ago, there was a street fair. A booth was selling wild (she said) mushrooms. Thought you might like to see what was offered. reta

Bear Basin/Brundage Road

Bryan and I made a quick trip to our favorite bolete spot. Story of the year...stopped by snow. So we went into the four corners/green gate area and found a few morels in a quick look-around. There were lots of orange cups, ramaria, slime molds, corts and hygrophorus. In fact, it looked alot like what we were finding on the foray. Still scattered patches of snow and standing water, but it is drying out fast. I am beginning to wonder if the morels will ever pop this year up there. Good hunting!

Morels and Corals

Here is our morel haul from about 8 hours of hiking and picking. The first day, even the really big ones (bigger than my fist) were not buggy. The next day, a few were, but not bad. My mom and dad got about this many in the same amount of time, and then doubled the amount over two more days. The final day mom said 2 out of 3 even "fresh" morels were riddled with bugs and practically crawling away from you. Sage Hen Reservoir area around 5300', on the 9th and 10th. I was surprised by the variety of colors - mostly your "usual" black morel, but also quite a few gray-to-almost white ones (which never had bugs) and a few beige, rounded ones. Dad said this was a better-than-average haul for "our" spot, but we had to hike about 3 times as far to collect them. The hike was wonderful, regardless.

Found lots of yellow coral fungi. Didn't pick any to try yet though, as I figure if tolerance is genetic, I only have a 50/50 chance. My dad likes them, but they make my mom sick...

Also many Gyromitra (seemingly two varieties), and a number of "pig's ears."

Thanks to everyone who helps out with the association and contributes to/maintains the blog. My family and I are having a great time hiking and learning! (And BTW, David Aurora's recipe for stuffed morels is FANTASTIC! Though I didn't bother to stuff them - just sliced them and tossed with the rest of the ingredients, then served them over a pile of sauteed Lamb's Quarters. Mmmmmm!

Fungi Variety

Hi, Krista W. here. Wanted to post some pictures of the various fungiI found while morel hunting with my kids a couple of weeks ago. I took samples to identify when I got back home, but most of them were too dried out after processing the morels. I'm hoping that some of you may know one or two of these by sight. If not, no worries. Just enjoy the pictures. We had perfect weather for hiking with convenient breaks in the rain. These first two pics are of "pink" mushrooms that had popped up all over, right along with the morels. Most were 8 - 10 cm, with a pink cap and a streaky pink stipe. The stipe broke like chalk, which made me think Russula...Pleasant smell.


I think these are a Lentinus/Lentinellus. White spores, growing mostly on Birch logs, pleasant smell, with ragged gills.


A pile of bluish translucent "snot." =)





Pretty beige mushrooms with concentric circles on the cap. The stipe was shiny, with a little bit of fuzz.



A tuber-like fungus(?) that we found near the bases of fir trees. We only saw them when they had been dug up by something. I assume more were there, but were underground. Something large, like deer, or maybe bear, seemed to have dug them up and worried them a bit, but those we saw didn't look to have anything eaten off of them. I thought they were a slime mold at first, but they were quite tough and didn't break up unless you really tromped on them.


Buttons of a light-greenish-yellow-capped mushroom. Greyish-green gills. The color is not very good in this picture. The top was a rather vivid green.







Last of all are these medium-sized (4-6 cm) conical capped mushrooms.

Blue Mountains

Hello this is Kevin S. I made a trip over to a place in the Blue mountains that I have found Boletes this time of year last weekend. I was hoping that the cold weather would let me catch them before they got to buggy. As it turned out I found about 5 in my secret spot but the main crop hadn't come up yet. The elevation is around 3600 feet. I hunted around and found morels in various states of age but no more Boletes. I tried to follow the Grande Rhonde over to Granite but snow was blocking the way. I think the Anthony lakes trip may run into a lot of snow. I went up Ladd canyon off of I84 and did find some morels but most were already over ripe. Wendy and I plan to look for Boletes in the lower elevations near McCall next week-end.

Bear Basin a bit slow

Just a note to let you know that Bryan and I went up to Brundage Road to get to Bear Basin. Unfortunately, the Honda was stopped by snow prior to getting to the four corners. The further you got up the road, the fewer the mushrooms. We walked Brundage Road, and did find a variety of fungi, including most everything we found at the foray two weeks ago. There were a few morels out in a variety of age classes, but nothing to get excited about! We did scare a sow bear and two cubs, so be careful.
The Cambridge area is now slowing down on morel production, so we will continue to search at higher elevations next weekend. Good hunting!

Verpa

Hello
Kevin again. I went up to McCall again this last week-end. I found some morels but they were really full of bugs. I have enclosed a photo of some slim mold, a trillium flower which are really out this spring and a shot from the Forey showing the Verpa compared to a true morel. The one where the stipe goes up under the cap is a Verpa bohemica which you shouldn't eat compared to a Morchella elanta which is great to eat. You need to make sure the stipe is attached to the cap at the base of the cap not up under the cap. Thanks to Hope we had a very nice side by side comparison. Note the cotton inside the stipe of the Verpa.

Sarcosoma mexicana

Found this weirdo while morel hunting with my dad yesterday. (Found exactly 14 of those - up at around 5200ft near Sage Hen. We checked usual spots at lower elevations, but found nothing but older verpas there. The 14 were in one little sunny spot and were brand-new. We are figuring 1 - 2 weeks for some better picking.) Found this black fungus nearby on a burned log - it was exactly the color of the charcoal. It looked like a cup fungus, so I expected it to fall apart when I picked it up, but it was TOUGH. I finally had to get a knife to cut through its base. Turned it over to find it was filled with transparent gel, just about the consistency of a Jello Jiggler. Very interesting. I just happened to flip open my Miller book, first time, to Sarcosoma mexicana. Weird. I do think that is what it is. Hopefully you can see the gel in the pictures. It's on the right side - took one with flash and one without.

We also found lots and lots and LOTS of gyromitra, and a few pig's ears. A large fruiting of new, fist-sized puffballs that I haven't tried to identify yet. A few snowbanks were left up at about 5000', but mostly on the north sides of hills. We had to park behind one and walk to our usual spot. Much bear scat too.

Hope you all have fun at the foray! I can't make it this year, but happy hunting and many morels to you all!

Krista W.

Morels are here, just not in McCall YET!

Thanks Kevin for the update.

I should have put this out last night, after I got home from Cambridge, but it was after 10 PM and I went to bed.

Kevin is right on the elevation. Sue and I checked about 8 areas in the New Meadows, Smokey Boulder area. We were finding morels between 4300 and 4500 ft according to my gps. They were just starting to emerge and were fresh and moist.

We were also checking for other mushrooms too and found a good variety of snowbank mushrooms. With last night's rain and the temperatures around 60 degrees and more rain predicted, we will have mushrooms for the foray and what looks like a long morel season.

Sue was at the Forest Service meeting concerning the Hurd Creek burn near Tamarack. There will be pickers since you can drive right to it. According to Kevin, the buyers are already here.

Sue can give us more information on picking in the burn area at the foray this weekend.

Mike and I had a nice bunch of morels with dinner tonight. Mighty fine.
Genny S

Hello This is Kevin. Wendy and I went to the Cabin creek area near Council. On another post I told you the bridge was out which is incorrect. The problem is downstream of the campground a large area of the road is completely gone. We went up Fall creek and came in the long way. We got 3/4 of a WinCo bag full. Note my bear spray. There was a lot of bear scat around. We had some luck in the fall creek area but it is really hit and miss. Everything we found was under 4500 ft. We checked some usual places up higher and there was nothing there. We found the most as low as we could go with the road washed out. We found some nice clusters outside of the burn areas but they needed to be areas that got a lot of sun for the most part. There were the usual suspects looking for mushrooms and even a buyer asked how I was doing. I think next week-end may put us in this kind of area because of the snow in McCall.

Morels, morel, morels

While we had snow on Monday, and rain and thunderstorms everyday since, we went out tonight and found about 100 morels in about 2 hours. Of course, no camera, but there were some BIG ones! Lots of other fungi around, tricholoma sapinaceua? hygrophorus subalpinus, two cool brown topped yellow gilled one with very fat stipes...they weren't really open yet, so I can't get a spore print. They looked like a boletus edulis with gills! Anyway, it is a fungi convention up here, so come on up if you get a chance! Sue

Panaeolus foenisecii

While I was dropping of a press release about our Spring Foray to the Argus Observer office, I decided to check out the Ontario cemetery. (Note to self, before Memorial Day is not a great time. Men with weed eaters are about, though at the moment it was lunchtime.) These were all over the back in various stages. I thought they might be this or Panaeolus separatus, but after spore print, and a look in Trudell's book, I think this is correct. Here are more details.

Spores: dark purplish, brown to black. Started small, red brown then grew to campanulate with age. Edges became moist. Pleasant odor. One worker asked me if I was going to eat them. (If they only knew:)

Wide, brown gills. But so far gone I could not tell what it was. The cemetery workers were already following me, so I hated to dig it up and take it.

reta

Bridge near cabin creek campground

Hello
This is Kevin. The bridge is out just past cabin creek. The road to cabin creek is slowly falling into the Weiser river. I wouldn't try it I turned back. There is still plenty of snow in town in McCall as of Sat. but mainly just piles.

2011 SIMA Mushroom Identification Class Trip to Idaho City

This is the group of 2011 SIMA Mushroom Class members who went on the field trip to Idaho City May 7.

We met in thee parking lot near Tully's Coffee Shop in the Albertson's Shopping Center at the intersection of Federal Way and Gowen Rd. The rain held off and we found lots of "snowbank" mushrooms, but no morels.



This is Jim Tamarelli's tailgate displaying a sample of what we found.
First half of the tailgate.






This is the rest of the spoils on the tailgate











The last shot is the release of water from Lucky Peak's original spill way known as "The Rooster Tail"

There are 3 openings. The middle one shoots the farest, but since it sprays large amounts of water on the road creating a hazard to drivers, it is no longer used.

Some of us do remember when it was though. What a sight! This very spectacular with out the middle hole going!

Genny S

How to make a post with the new blog setup.

Hello


This is Kevin. It seems people are having trouble making blog posts since I changed the blog. You will notice that you can now go to the blog without signing-in with the sign-in and the super secret password. The sign-in and password are the same but you will need to click on sign-in in the upper right of the http://idahomushrooms.blogspot.com/ site to be able to post a blog entry. Once you click sign-in you will enter Idahomushrooms and the secret password to sign-in. You then can click on View Blog or New Post . You don't need to sign-in unless you want to make a post or a comment.

Green Belt Walk

Yesterday, Elinor and I took a walk in our neighborhood, along the GB. We found this lovely M. esculenta in perfect condition, so they are still out there.

Bob C.

Payette river

This is Kevin. I found some Morels along the Payette river yesterday. They are almost over for the season.

Changes to the blog

Hello, This is Kevin. I have made the blog so anyone can look at it but only club members can make posts or changes. If you go to the blog site you can add a RSS feed if you wish. I will talk more about this in the meeting. I have been finding some Blonde morels on the greenbelt but it is hard to find a dry spot.

Discina perlata

Mr. Bill and I went out on Wednesday up around Council. We found no morels, but lots of wildflowers and a few other mushrooms. Here are a few I have pictures of.

Mycena?

Fometopsis pinicola

This is the underside.

Cryptoporus volvatus

Okay, I'm reeeeaallly guessing here, because we were in the truck running late on the way home and this was up a steep bank. But I'm pretty sure:)

Sorry, I just keep finding these cool slime molds, too. reta