Toadstools and fungi

Doc, You were right about that tree with the fungus. I was looking at it this morning and saw that those dadburn voles had chewed a large section of the bark away near the base. There's now green mold growing all over the exposed area. Do you think I should hit the mold with Fungicide?

This is a big one, about 6" across.

I USUALLY leave Mother provide the sequence of events to clean up Her own act. Many so called magic in a box fix chemicals only build monster resistantce elements be they insect, other life forms or plant forms.

Ladies, I just saw where you were talking about Kennett. I'm from a town in MO. called Kennett. I never heard of the name any place else before. It just caught my eye!
Audrey
BTW, two years in a row I had one mushroom grow in my yard. A small, almost button type mushroom. It only lasted two days, and was gone. Snow white, very pretty!

This message was edited Jul 19, 2008 8:14 AM

Hi Audrey!
I'm getting little white puffballs all over tha yard, like marble size. My neighbor had a huge one, it turned brown and looked like a large bun sitting in the grass. So fun to puff them and see the spores coming out.

Puff balls have been called fungi beefsteak. I have eaten them all my life. They are one of the three and only three that I am absolutely sure of when I see them. Most of the time they are marble to golf ball size. They can grow much larger but that is a rare happening. My use.....same as any mushroom. This one when larger slices and fries like a steak. Who does not remember as kids kicking them to see the smoke?

One little mystery is that I actually had more puff balls when my soil was more messed up with the chemistry I dislike. Could the function of the puff ball be that of helping to clean up pathegons and chemistry in the soil?

Makes sense to me! Mine wasn't a real puggball, it opened out to about 2 in. around with a sharp edge. Gone in 2 days!

Oddly (to me) My little white puffballs are in very deprived (organically) packed soil from construction.
Yes, I guess you would have to take care and see you aren't mistaking a button of regular mushroom for a puffball..

Fungi has slowed down here for me. But I did find this little "pleated" (Sally's discription) guy growing out of the center of my little gillardia plant.

And a close up.

Thanks, Doc, I guess I'll leave the tree untreated.

Lady, that looks like your shroom has sprouted foliage!

What is a puffball?

Today's visitors.

Puffballs are fungi that are round and white or cream colored from marble size clear up to larger than a softball. When relatively dry if kicked or hit with a golf nine iron the spore flys out and makes a small to large puff of spore. I still can't pass one without giving it a kick.

Do you all think this is a puffball?

Finally, I get some orange fungi!!!!!!

Stormy, if your "puffball" has no stem then thats what it is. They just stay balls let it riped up a few days and then give it a kick.

Never seen that orange fungi before, the few on the bottom right look like peanut shells.

This is such a cool thread! I love mushrooms. I don't have a picture of it
but I remember finding a "vomit mushroom" and thinking that was what it was...
but it was a mushroom.

Picking mushrooms (for eating) is one of my fondest memories when I was young and we were living in Germany. After a heavy rain, we would all get up really early and head for the woods. They grow mostly in clean, pine woods and hunting for them in the fallen needles and moss was so much fun.
Just now, as we left Latvia to come home, their mushroom season was just beginning. We already saw people coming out of the woods with bags full in their hands.

Srormy--
Whenever you see a line of mushrooms on your lawn, it is more than likely, that there is some rotting wood underneath. maybe an old tree root or such. Your orange fungi look like stuff that comes in rotting mulch. Not to worry.....

Sally, I remember Puff-balls too. Squishhhhh....Of course that "smoke" just spreads them further...
Doc, I would have never thought you could eat them! A;ll the stuff you hear about pisoning yourself IF you don't know what you are picking... Maybe you can help me out with remembering the name of a mushroom. It is VERY good. Has a really fat, bulbous stem and a cap of velvety brown that fits snuggly over the stem. it is pretty gourmet (NO! NOT a Morrel). Fries up deliciously in butter....What is it called in English??????? I have been told--but never remember it!

OK! Gotta go out on this nice day and be more productive!

Gita

You need a local expert. I do not know that one exists where I am now living but I do not get out and about like I used to either. I know a rather common one that would answer to your description found in South Mountain between where you live and Waynesboro, Pa. It's common "red neck" name may not be printed here. Visualize it horrizontal and called a part of a horse. Sorry that is the only name I ever heard it called. It was one swear word the boys could get away with when hunting them.

This thing is 10" across and 6" high!

Look what just arrived!!!!!

WHAT?????...is that????

Hey! Storm... Looks like a conjoined triplet puffball.
And stinkhorns. Way to go!

Looks like alien Earthworms to me.....

Puffball champ--I'll tell my mom, she just found two giant ones and was totally blown away.

Sally,

LOL indeed- I didn't think about how I phrased that !

Really, my mom was so shocked/amazed/intrigued/flabbergasted You'da thought a UFO landed on her street. I guess they looked like UFOs to her.

Unidentified Fungal Object

now That I worked on

Look how big it got today!

This was in the yard yesterday.

Now look at it today.

It's getting out of hand when they start showing up in the sidewalk!

Ok, I've decided that when they start to dry I'll kick the little one and disect the triplets! All in the interest of science of course!

Without absolute personal visual account I will not say that the white fungi is a puff ball. However if you can get a local trusted ID a puff ball is excellent eating treated and used as any good fungi. Sliced and fried in butter....mercy with a tid bit of unhealthy steak....what could be more sinfull or better? I have eaten puff balls for many years. My grandmother picked and canned them by the bushels. You may find that hard to believe but the reason is simply that fungicides have all but taken them out of the food chain.

Doc you might be on to something, the 2nd picture is looking more like NOT a puff ball.
Waiting for stormy's kick test results.

Can't find shroom's in my yard, seems spring was the best time for me. But I keep looking.

It looks like you are about to kick $20.00 a pound up into spore dust that looks like smoke. That will not assure you a return next year. Most if not all the spore are already in the ground. When the conditions are right they will grow. I only think I know what I am seeing. I would be busting my back side to get a learning experience confirmed. If I were there with you I would likely be warming the pan and melting the butter. Please do not do that without an expert opinion in the mix.

Doc, I am an adventure loving Gal, but even I have enough sense not to eat the 'shrooms.
I don't want a stomach ache, fatality or hallucinations!!! Unfortunately, I don't know anyone with 'shroom sense, so alas, I will look, touch, smell, but not taste. It's a shame you are so far away, and I am so behind in my gardening, or I'd drive by and give them to you.

Do you remember earlier on the post I said that I once had one that was about 4 lbs.? This one is getting close to the size of that one. Funny, it's almost in the same spot as that other one. That was about 3 years ago, before I ever had any mulch there, but there was a hugh pile of soon to be rotting firewood there. It took me a year to split it all.

I had a very hectic workday today and didn't get out to the garden at all, so tomorrow, I'll check it out, and probably not kick either one. I still have ailing feet and can't bear the thought of kicking anything!!!!!

I think I have found out the name of the mushroom I could not ID in my above post (July 26).
I believe it is a Porcini.

Still not 100% sure--but pretty sure these are them...

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/food/porcini.asp

Porcini are imported and sold here. They are delicious but never as good as finding one in a natural pine forest. Areas West of Portland Oregon have some similar to Porcini that show up at the farmer's markets as wild collected. We have used Porcini and collected natural fresh mushrooms that look like Porcini while visiting family in Portland.

Thanks, Gita. I always have dried Porcini on hand for making soups. They give everything a wonderful rich flavor. These don't look anything like any of the fresh Porcini I saw for sale in Italy. But your thread was very helpful because I'm always reading about Ceps in french cookbooks and have been trying to locate some. Turns out, that's what the French call Porcini. Here are some Photos from yesterday.

Other side.

This is now almost 18" across.