facinating fungi

I do believe that I have been just about everywhere in search of whatever there is to find near grand lake.... and Ive found some pretty cool stuff. My eyes are almost always stuck on the inspiring world at my feet. Rocks, mushrooms, flowers, spiders... just about everything I love to learn about is down there.

However, there are moments that may occur at anytime out here when I am better off looking up. There are two osprey nests on shadow lake, and I stirred a huge bear from it's resting place just yesterday!

The majestic creature was walking away from me when I heard it snap a branch, and later when I caught site of it winding through the many trees. The bear was of a cinnamon colour and a size that would overwhelm any other creature but the moose. I stumbled upon it's resting place, and found some scat, a set of footprints, and a scratched up tree. Check out this cool pic of a bright aspen. Its got markings all the way up that I could only imagine came from a big bear.

We've had rain. The afternoons and evenings around Grand lake have been wet for the past few days, and the mushrooms seem to like it!

The response has been intense! Ive been able to find just about every mushroom imaginable!...except the one I was looking for...

In search of the oyster mushroom, which supposedly thrives on dead aspen, Ive traveled through many pine forests in the park and surrounding national forests. In the park, especially along the tonahutu trail, the sacred mushrooms are in surplus! Two afternoons ago, I discovered 14 on a stretch of trail that measured only a mile long. Nine of these were in a single impressive cluster near the base of a fallen pine. In the Arapaho National forest, I was lucky enough to find a handful of edible boletes!

There were many mushrooms there, around a small meadow I'd found up the arapaho creek, and I harvested two king boletes, an aspen orange cap, seven large puffballs and a single large white one. This one had a flatter white cap with brown gills that were not connected to the stem, and a large membranous veil. I looked it up on a National park handout that said that it, the meadow mushroom, was a choice edible. I snagged it, but have since read that they can be poisonous... I might try it.... It sure does smell nice and I have since run out of mushrooms to eat!!!

One of my favorites, the hawks wing, is said to be a good edible when young. I was told that they should be cooked for a longer period of time and that the adults may taste a bit bitter.. I dont plan on trying this'n!

A nice king bolete, above, and the tubes on the bottom of the big cap of a Leccinum fibrillosum. This mushroom is the other edible bolete, but it has no common name that Ive heard. It can be told from the king by the stem. The stem is thinner than the kings, which can grow larger than it's cap, and is generally dirty looking when picked- due to blue stainingThere are several poisonous russulas that look very similar to my edible boletes. THey are easily distinguished by the gills on the underside of the cap of the russula, or the spongy, microscopic tubes on the underside of the cap of a bolete!

However, there are some boletes that should not be eaten. There are two species here that are good edibles, one is the king. The other is similar in appearance to the king, but has a thinner stalk that stains blue when cut. The Aspen orange caps are supposedly poisonous and may cause severe "gastrointestinal" pains, but I have had no problem with them.

The Red/white dotted amenita muscaria is famed by it's classic toadstool fruits, easy recognition and deadly reputation. The more I read about them, the cooler they are!

I find them commonly with red, orange and yellow caps in the drier areas of my traditional stream-side mushroom hunting range. Some seemed o have been chewed on or eaten by some poor creature. If a human were to consume a FLY AGARIC (aka fly amenita, sacred mushroom), he or she may experience a wide range of symptoms including everything from drowsiness, nausia and diliria, hallucinations and euphoria, and even seizures and coma. The intoxication is due mainly to the compound mucimol, which depresses the central nervous system. A dose of 1g of amenita muscaria is enough to poison a person. Mucimol is different than the psychoactive compounds psilocyin and psilocin, the 'active ingredient' of magic mushrooms, which may also be found in amenitas. Toxicity of a fly mushroom is greatly dependant on habitat and season. Ive read that a fatal dose of these guys was once "calculated" at 15 caps, but that spring and summer fruitings can yield up to ten times the toxins per cap that a fall one could.

The "common" names fly- are said to have derived from an early european culture because eating the mushrooms could introduce flies into a mans head, and make him crazy.

The mushrooms are common throughout the northern hemisphere, where they are native, and are quickly becoming introduced to the rest of the world. Early cultures in Siberia, Greece and even Mexico used the fungi in medicine- as a hallucinogenic. One theory suggests that the Nordic Viking warriors ingested Amenitas to enter a trance of rage before and during battles.

The mushrooms are still eaten today, though not as commonly, and often recreationally. They are labeled as a unscheduled drug in the united states with no federal regulations. They have been made illegal to posses with the intentions of human consumption in Louisiana. There are many other species of Amenitas, most of them poisonous, and a handful just deadly. I cant say that any of them have quite the history or beauty of the Amenita Muscaria (var. formosa) that Ive been finding...SOME MUSHROOM, HUH!??

The common 'gem-studded puffball grows to about the size of a half-dollar coin, and is very tasty. I find them around rotting wood by themselves or in big colonies and clusters. Below is that mysterious 'meadow mushroom. There were a handful of them, up to five inches in diameter.... I may try to eat one. Ive heard that they can be moderately poisonous and that they are 100% safe to eat... Ive got a 50-50 chance!