Been too busy to blog of late...

I've been getting ready to end my days as a grad student/indentured servant, and I've finished my PhD. Tomorrow I'm off to Portland, OR for the American Phytopathological Society's annual meeting, where I'll get to talk about some of my research.

Russula in my backyard

This photo and the following two are of a mushroom I found in my backyard. It's a Russula sp. How do I know? Well, for one, the bright white gills which reflect the white spore print. Okay, that's not a great character because gill color often doesn't betray spore print color. But the next clue is the crisp break in the stalk. This is a giveaway for the Russulaceae, and is caused by distinctive boxy shaped cells called sphaerocysts. The two main genera in the Russulaceae are Russula and Lactarius. Lactarius spp, as the name suggests, exude a milky secretion when the cap or stem are broken. So that leaves us with Russula. Which Russula? I don't know. There are no distinctively green capped Russula spp. in Bessette et al. Some Russulaceae are edible and choice, others not so much and could hurt you.

Lots of material for bawdy jokes in this one.

The stinkhorns are a group of mushrooms that are even more phallic than most mushrooms, and include a genus, Phallus. There's a new species of Phallus to be described in the next Mycologia from Sao Tome and Principe. It is to be named after the expedition leader, a herpetologist

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)