Tuesday, 15 February 2011

Is there anybody out there?

'Cos there ain't mushroom in here (ouch!). Cue music video.


I've spotted a variety of fungi growing in my area. Here are some pictures. I think that I know which ones are poisonous, but I'm hoping that someone knowledgable will tell me for certain.

No.1 Found growing on a dead tree stump in my garden. I think non-poisonous.


No.2 Found growing at the base of a live tree in the woods. I think non-poisonous.


No.3 Found growing amongst dead leaves in the woods. I think poisonous.


In other news, mum got a mystery Valentine card on Monday. She managed to get it out of the envelope (despite having a bad tremor) after I got it started for her, and she also managed to read the words on the front of the card and inside. I videoed each event. The book got four green blobs (I use pink & green highlighters to highlight bad & good news) that day!

7 comments:

praguestepchild said...

My wife is Czech, and she's been collecting mushrooms since she was a child (like many Slavs). She doesn't like the first two, and is not sure about the third since it is covered by a leaf but is pretty sure the third one is ok, but you have to have to peel the skin. Tree mushrooms might be edible but have no flavor.

Nigel Kinbrum said...

Interesting! When I prodded the third one, a cloud of what I presumed were spores shot out. It also up"root"ed very easily and weighed almost nothing, which is why I took a dislike to it.

I couldn't get the leaf unstuck. Pulling on the leaf up"root"ed the thing!

Galina L. said...

I didn't noticed eatable mushrooms too. The third one, covered with leave, is hardly eatable. If it was almost weightless and produced cloud of spores it most probably was the mark of an old (very mature)plant. Youngest ones usually have more substance.
Is there no mushroom hunt tradition in England?

Galina L. said...

Spring is around the corner. Right now it is not a season for eatable mushrooms (as far as I know). It will be time for morel mushrooms very soon.http://thegreatmorel.com/

Nigel Kinbrum said...

Thanks for the feedback. I would have approved your comments sooner but forgot to start Windows Live Mail when I turned on the lap-top!

I've not yet seen a Morel, but I've never looked for 'shrooms before.

Galina L. said...

Thank you for your welcome. I know that you could be busy and didn't expect you immediately to go through all comments.
I truly miss relaxing and friendly northern forests while living in Florida. There are some beautiful areas to do hiking (from October to April) and I have a small forest in my backyard with tall pines and short palmettos palms. But you can't do through those forests because of poison ivy, it could be snakes,once I had to chose another path in a natural preserve because it was an alligator lying across my intended path. It happened only once, though.
There are other things to do, of course, like swimming, beach walking, rollerskating.

Nigel Kinbrum said...

Hi Galina,

Your last comment ended up in the spam folder. The system isn't properly trained, yet.

Poison Ivy? Snakes? Alligators? In England, the most poisonous animal is an Adder, and that's nothing compared to a Rattler.