Finding cool stuff in the woods

The leaves are starting to change.

The mushrooms are getting wrinkled and sad looking.

Amanita sp.

This Bolete is aging fast without the humidity; it's cap is cracking

Here's a closer look.

This is the last of the wild flowers.

Earlier this week I found an interesting polypore called Inonotous dryadeus.  It is commonly called the weeping conk because of the amber fluid present when the mushroom is fresh and young.  These fungi inhabit tree trunks or branches consuming the wood.  The pores or tubes are on the underside.  You can see the gray part of this mushroom is the pore surface.

The same day I found this very seasonal looking mushroom, Amanita flavoconia.

and a pretty purple mushroom, Laccaria ochropurpurea

Copper found this.

We were over on the white trail.

And I found this. Deer skull.

This recent find is one the largest Amanita's I have ever seen.  It's called Amanita Atkinsoniana.

And on the smaller side; these Psyatharella

This toothed mushroom was also on the white trail. Its called Hericium erinaceus

Tooth fungi produce spores on the tooth-like or spine-like projections.

There are many ways mushrooms produce spores.  However, the main categories are the Boletes, Polypores and the Gilled mushrooms.

Boletes are characterized by a spongy surface of pores.  From the Mushroomexpert.com site this is a way of thinking about Boletes. "Imagine taking the cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels, and affixing a lot of seeds to the inside of the tube.  Then repeat the procedure with many other tubes, and glue them together.  Suspend all the tubes from a board, so they hang downward--then wait for the seeds to fall out.  The tubes are so tightly packed that you only see the pore surface the opening of the tubes that looks like the surface of a sponge."

Here's a close up of a Bolete pore surface, a slippery jack, Suillus luteus.  You can see the tubes.

A less close up pic of the same mushroom.

and a right side up view.

Gilled mushrooms produce spores along the platelike or blade like structures attached to the underside of the cap.

Here's a look at a mushroom with gills. This is an Amanita from the Lepidella Section.

From the Mushroomexpert.com; "The gilled mushrooms are spore factories, created for the sole purpose of manufacturing microscopic spores to be carried away by air currents and with any luck, to land in a suitable location to germinate and start a new organism.  The odds of any individual spore having this kind of luck, however, are so low that the mushroom produces millions of spores to compensate.  the gills are assembly lines, and they dramatically increase the number of spores the mushroom can produce.  Both sides of each gill are covered with microscopic spore-producing machinery. "

On the white trail this week I discovered this new (to me) mushroom that is similar to the coral fungi.  It is called Clavarioid fungi.

These produce spores on the sides of the club like branches.

Here is a coral fungi; that produces spores in the same way.