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

Morels in the Upper Country

Yes, that is not a misprint! May 1! We were out for our annual break-through-the-snow trek to get some gyromitra for the first mushroom meal of the year. Bryan, with his uncanny ability to spot morels while road hunting, stops the car, and comes back with about a half dozen morels! There were plenty of gyromitra and verpas available also. So I can say spring has sprung on the east facing slopes.

Before you get too excited, we did have to hike, because there is plenty of snow that is unpassable. We are just getting further up the road every week! Sue