The Chanterelle quest.

Some big clusters in the Columbia gorge. I don't really know what they are maybe Honey Mushrooms.

I had a couple of days free so I made a mad dash to the Oregon coast on Thursday. I stayed with Wendy's parents in Portland. I searched Friday and Saturday in a triangle area of Tillamook, Cannon Beach and Banks Or. I was able to get my fill of Chanterelles. They are still coming up but the Boletes are done from what I saw. I saw a lot of interesting mushrooms. Most of them were overripe but others were still popping up. There were lots of different species everywhere I would stop. It was raining the whole time, of course. There were plenty of areas to explore and hardly anyone else around. The areas I picked the Chanterelles in were unpicked the best that I could tell. I could see lots of old Chanterelles that had turned to mush without being picked. At one place I had really gotten into the Chanterelles and then suddenly moved out of them. I looked around to see what had changed. I had moved along a ridge into an area that all of the trees looked like a birch or some broadleaf type tree. Once I moved back into the Firs and evergreen trees I was into the mushrooms again. Most of the Boletus were way overripe. I didn't see many Kings other then down by the coast. There were a lot of them but even the buttons were buggie. Take a look at the pictures. Click on the picture to zoom in.

I think these are Clavaria purpurea found along the coast in huge numbers.

A major Russula crop in a campground.                                        Helvella lacunosa is my guess.

A soggy Boletus and a Helvella lacunosa as above.  

The Chanterelle. The last type of mushroom on my checklist for the year.           

WOW!

Correction: I think that this may be a Hericium abietis after a  little looking around. I think it doesn't have as many branches as the ramosum tends to have. In any case it was good.
Saturday I made one last trip to McCall in search of a soggy Chanterelle. The Chanterelle is the only thing on my list that I never found this year. I think I found several but they were to far gone to tell for sure. On the way up I made one stop and made a major find. I found several large logs with Hericium ramosum, also listed as Hericium coralloides, growing out of several locations per log. I only took the whitest crop and left the sections starting to yellow. I only took about 1/2 of what there was. When I got home I weighed the harvest to be over 5 pounds. The last time I found this species it was on the Boise Greenbelt. It looks like the conifers hold both  Hericium ramosum also listed as Hericium coralloides, and Hericium americanum. We had a lovely shrimp stir fry with the fresh crop. I cooked and froze the rest. I am sure Bryan P will be jealous.
Click on the photo to see the full view.

The shot on the left shows some I left because they were too yellow.

Compare the good and a bad mushrooms.

I have taken a photo of the edible Brown meadow mushrooms (Agaricus cupreobrunneus) compared to the poison yellow stainer (Agaricus xanthodermus). Look closely for the semi-hollow stipe on the meadow mushroom and the caps difference.The four on the right half of the photo are the yellow stainers. Click on the picture to look for the yellow stain or yellow foot.

Below is the yellow stainer (Agaricus xanthodermus) alone. If you rub the cap it turns yellow.

Here is a photo of what I think is a Hericium Americanum. In an earlier entry I showed what I think is a Hericium ramosum also listed as Hericium coralloides. Compare the two.

Close up.

Top view.

Log side view.

Meadow mushrooms

Here are some shots of what I think are Brown meadow mushrooms (Agaricus cupreobrunneus). The caps on these seem to vary depending on which tree I find them under. They have no yellow stain with a slight reddish stain around the gills. If you look in Arora's pocket guide on page 112 the staining on the stipe and near the gills is exactly what I am seeing. Note closely the coloring on the caps. These were found in a pasture that used to hold cows. If you can find a button that hasn't opened yet the gills are very pink. Once the gills open up they start to take on a brown color. They smell just like the store bought variety.
 Click on the photo to see the full size shot.

On to the Pholiota destruens. These grow on the cottonwood trees along the greenbelt. They are not edible.
I have a couple of closeup shots.

Note how the stipe turns 90 degrees.

Thanks all for now.

Greenbelt shopping.

The nice warm weather has urged me to wander the Greenbelt some more. I have found lots of Oysters and even what I think are some Brown Meadow Mushrooms (Agaricus cupreobrunneus). I found a log full of Oysters and looked down to find I was standing on the Meadow Mushrooms. Below are some interesting shots of mycelium of the Oyster mushroom. I saw some little guys sticking out and pulled some bark on a couple of logs. I put the bark back the best that I could. There are hundreds of little guys starting out to be huge. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

In the left hand photo at the top of the log is a rare center stiped Oyster. I cut it off an it sure smelled like an Oyster and had decurrent gills.

In the left hand photo above you can see Pholioto destruens and Pleurotus ostreatus on the same tree (Cottonwood). Click on the photo.

A shot of before and after the harvest. I will do the Meadow mushrooms on a separate post.