Jack O'Lantern Mushrooms

My eye was drawn to these babies as I was driving around town this afternoon. I do believe what we have here is jack o lantern mushrooms (Omphalotus sp.). They are common at the base of oak trees or on adjacent roots (as these were). These ones were really bright orange, so they stood out and I just had to stop and tiptoe across a bit of lawn to get these pics.
I've had a friend mistake these for chanterelles, as they do have decurrent gills, but fortunately she didn't eat them, as they are poisonous. Probably won't kill you, but you won't be happy for a while if you do try eating them.

Montana!

So, if you've visited my blog from stem to stern, you've seen the map of all the states I've visited. It's only there to shamelessly burnish my own glory, I admit. Well, right now I'm in Montana, which means I've added a state to my life list, leaving only Alaska, Delaware, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. I may have visited Delaware and not remembered it.

I'm planning on starting a post-doc out here in January, at least part-timing between Montana and Alabama, since I've got some roots in Alabama the Beautiful.

Here's a pic taken in Alabama by a friend of mine. I wish I could've seen this in person. That does appear to be a Hericium (coralloides or ramosum?), which is edible and choice.

A little bit of prime Alabamiana

Okay, this has nothing to do with fungi, but speaks volumes about Alabama. It's so awesome I had to watch it twice, post it here, and then I'm going to watch it again a time or two.

Lots of interesting stuff out there....

I've been remiss in my blogging, especially so since there are SO MANY FUNGI fruiting out there, with all the rain we've been having. I recently went out with a friend to Tuskegee National Forest, where we saw a ton of stuff. And just about everywhere you look in the loveliest village on the plains, you see fairy rings.
Here's one.
And another.
And another.
And yet another. Really, these things are EVERYWHERE. I've blogged about them before, like in my neighbor's yard (UPDATE: she moved away! The new neighbors do not appear to be so mycophobic).

Today I was out in the woods near Tuscaloosa, and saw some fine fungi out there. I'm most jazzed about the gilled bolete I found, Phylloporus rhodoxanthus (sensu lato). I knew of its existence, and I can't remember if I'd ever found one before, but I saw the cap from above (being taller than most mushrooms) and thought "Aha, bolete!"

Turning it over, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find this:
It reminded me of a time (in California) when I picked up a Douglas-fir cone with a mushroom growing out of it, which I thought was Strobiluris trullisatus, and was surprised to find teeth (it was Auriscalpium vulgare). This mushroom looks just like a gilled mushroom (or "agaric") only with a bright yellow hymenium like a bolete. This particular one did not stain blue, which can happen, but does have forked gills (click on photo to zoom in), like a transitional form between true gills and the poroid (actually tuboid, boletes have tubes, not pores).
Also on the topic of boletes, I found some nice specimens of Strobilomyces dryophilus, "old man of the woods", good enough to eat, which I just might do!

Boletes

Found some more boletes. I think I'm ready to try some. They look like
B. hortonii But I'll drop some ammonia ok just to be sure. Also looks
like some are being parasitized by Hypomyces (white stuff)

A-looky heeyah!

I was walking out of the lab today and came across this bright orange something. It turned out to be a chanterelle, the first I've seen in Alabama. All this late wet weather we've been having has brought out all kinds of strange things.

This one is most likely either Cantharellus confluens or C. lateritius. Bessette et al. have pictures of both but indicate that they may be a single species. The folds are not well developed, so they don't look very much like gills, as chanterelles are not directly related to gilled mushrooms in the strict sense. Chanterelles are some of the more 'easily identified' mushrooms, but as always, that's a relative term.

So what did I do? I said I wasn't going to eat it, because it looked a little beat up, but the more I looked at it and the more certain I became of my ID, the more it seemed to be crying out for some brushing off, chopping, and frying in Amish butter. So that's what I did. Just brush off the dirt (soggy mushrooms aren't very nice), chop, fry in butter with a pinch of salt. Dee-licious!

I'd almost forgotten how delicious fresh wild mushrooms can be. What a treat!

The Hops are Free!

Good news, fans of craft beers! Governor Bob Riley has signed off on the "Gourmet Beer Act", which will allow for a greater diversity of beers in the state of Alabama. The Law previously restricted the sale of beers over 6.0 % alcohol by volume, the new limit is 13.9%. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

A bit of Alabamiana for St. Patrick's Day

Need oysters in T-town?

A couple of students at 'Bama (the University of Alabama, to be a bit more formal) have found a way to make a few ducats in their backyard, growing oyster mushrooms. They've started a company called Tuscaloosa Organic Produce to sell their products. Pretty good for 'Tide fans ;{)-

Outdoor Alabama picks mushroom photo to grace cover!

A rare bit of Alabama mushroom news! Outdoor Alabama, the monthly magazine of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has selected the winners of the 2009 Photo Contest. The Grand Prize Winner is an Amanita! Okay, the winner is actually a 12-year-old shutterbug from Birmingham, but his subject is an Amanita. Also, the First, Second and Third Place Winners in the Flora section were all images of fungi, since lichens are part fungus as well.

While I'm happy for the fungi, it is a pet peeve of mine that fungi are referred to as "flora". This is one of those relict institutions from the days when fungi were thought to be closely related to plants. After all, both fungi and plants are non-motile (Oomycetes, Chytrids and slime molds being important exceptions). Fungal nomenclature follows the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (rather than the zoological, e.g. fungal families end in -aceae instead of -idae). But the fact is that fungi are actually more closely related to animals than they are to plants (as in sharing a most recent common ancestor).

Do I think Outdoor Alabama should have a separate category for Mycota? To allow the Flora a chance to shine again in photo contests? No, not right now anyway. I just hope the world is someday ready to embrace this level of biological literacy.

And also, if you want to see some AMAZING photos of fungi, I highly recommmend Taylor Lockwood's books and website, link over there on the right-->

Okay, a recipe

Most of the what I get from Google news alerts are recipes. Not that I'm opposed to mycophagy, I just don't like posting lots of recipes that I haven't tried making or eating. But this one happens to be from Alabama, so I'll make an exception.

Jack Teagarden sings Stars Fell On Alabama and some notes on license tags

Here's another YouTube post, featuring the song that graces our basic license tags. Some folks prefer to cover the "Stars Fell On..." part with a "Heart of Dixie" sticker, and as of 2009 you can get the new Sweet Home Alabama tag. I, for one, love the song Stars Fell On Alabama, though I think I'm in a minority, there. This rendition of Stars Fell on Alabama is performed by Jack Teagarden, a trombonist who played with many of the luminaries of jazz including Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, Bix Beiderbecke, "Fatha" Hines, and Paul Whiteman.


I have yet to see the Nuked Vet tag, but I'll let you know when I do.

Got my new mushroom book

I just got my copy of Mushrooms of the Southeastern United States, by Alan E. Bessette, William C. Roody, Arleen R. Bessette, and Dail L. Dunaway. What can I tell you? I'm tickled pink to have it in my library, and it will certainly help me in my identifications. They cover lots of different macrofungi other than gilled mushrooms sensu stricto (agarics), including puffballs, crusts, cup and saucers, bird's nests, carbon fungi, and polypores. Beautifully illustrated, including keys (which I haven't gotten to test out yet), and even some mushroom recipes. Unfortunately, I'm about to leave the country for a couple of months, so I'll miss a good chunk of the fall fruiting, as well as the rest of the college football season, baseball playoffs, and elections.
It's a bit spendy, but an indispensable addition to any Alabamian mycologist's library.

In Alabama news, you may have heard of Dothan, Alabama's recent incentive program to bring more Jews to the area. If you are Jewish, and are considering moving to an area of moderate climate, you may wish to consider Dothan, as there's a cash prize involved.

An actual Alabama fungus article!

While I'm not the only mycologist in the world, nor the only person in Alabama (Alabamians do outnumber mycologists in the world, you can be sure), neither am I the only mycologist in Alabama. But one thing I'm pretty certain about at this point, is that I am the only mycologist in Alabama blogging about it. So while I usually post news of a fungal bent, I also post about some things in Alabama, and some things about fungi that I find in the local area. Here though, is an unexpected surprise: an actual article from the Birmingham News about mushrooms in Alabama. More specifically, about the fairy rings like the ones I've recently observed.
They also mention the existence of the North Alabama Mycological Society, which I should really check out, and you should too. And another bonus, is finding some good resources on mushrooms for all the Alabama mycologists out there, including some field guides on southeastern mushrooms!

Holy cow! In other news, History Channel is going to have a program on fungi this week, on Modern Marvels! I may have to check it out if I can, although that's also when some important pigskin is happening, too.

The rare lacquered bracket

Here's another fungus in the news, a rare shelf fungus of the genus Ganoderma, G. resinaceum, otherwise known as the lacquered bracket (try saying that ten times fast). It appears that an amateur mycologist stumbled upon it in Worcestershire, UK.

We do have Ganodermas here in Alabama. According to North American Polypores (the 2 volume tome on these fungi, sadly out of print), there are three species in Alabama, G. applanatum, G. lobatum, and G. lucidum. Ganoderma applanatum is known as the artist's conk, due to the staining reaction that occurs when the hymenium (pore surface) is scratched. Kind of like that bolete over there with my name on it. Artist's conks are really common.

Ganoderma lobatum, I haven't seen. Or if I have I didn't know about it.

Ganoderma lucidum is also known as reishi or ling zhi, and like the fungus in the article, may have some medicinal properties. It's also really common, with a lacquered appearance and often, an offset stipe.

My neighbor, mycophobe

My neighbor, bless her heart, hates mushrooms. She has a lovely fairy ring of mushrooms that sprouts up everytime it rains. She dutifully plucks every single mushroom and chucks them in the street. These pics aren't of her yard, but are nearby.
Tropical Storm Fay came through our corner of Alabama, and now the whole place is bursting forth with succulent basidiocarps, the more technical terms for most mushrooms. We've seen some more boletes coming up too, and I'm still not planning on eating them.

In other news, I've added Wisconsin to the list of States I've visited. WooHoo!

BONUS: How to play Sweet Home Alabama on the guitar!!!

Interesting cover of Sweet Home Alabama

This is a Finnish band, the Leningrad Cowboys, with the Red Army Choir.

Seasons Greetings /Top viral film from Alabama

Okay, I don't really care much for viruses of any kind. Computer viruses are nasty, human pathogenic viruses are no picnic, and there are some unsavory plant pathogens as well. Tobacco mosaic virus is one of them. But in the forests, viruses are not really known for being pathogens. In the forests, the fungi are pretty much the main players with the trees. But this video is the new, good(?) kind of viral,

Warning, you may find yourself humming about "just like a mini-mall" when you should be humming Christmas carols!


And in honor of the Holiday, here's a lovely image of jolly ol' St. Nick and some mushrooms. Thanks TV!

Check out this little gadget

I haven't been doing as much mycologizing as entomologizing recently. And on top of that, I've just been busy busy busy. So the cool item I'm posting has little to do with mycology or Alabama. If I may direct your attention to the bottom of the page (press "end" to take the short cut), you'll see a nifty little device for showing off all the states or countries you've visited, as I demonstrate. You can then click on this link, or the one at the bottom to create one for yourself.

I did get to see some interesting bugs and fungi on a trip to Florida last month, and hopefully I'll get some pix up soon.