Life on the Outer Coast

Glad I went for a walk yesterday morning, today was rather wet and cold. Built a fire as soon as I went home. Might be the farewell to mushroom season.

This morning I was surprised to not find spores from any of the three caps of the Panellus serotinus that I set up last night. So much for trying the spore culture, decided to try the stem culture method instead. Tore up a cardboard box at the high school and left it to soak overnight so the class can help with the project. One of the students told me that they wanted to learn something besies PCR, maybe mushroom culture will be a good change of pace.

Managed to identify the two Hygrophorus. The dark one is H. olivaceoalbus, the pink one H. pudorinus. I'm sure that I've probably ignored the former species in past years. It is a rather attractive mushroom and shouldn't have been dismissed so careflessly. The dark lower stem could be likened to a thigh high sock, with a halibut belly white upper leg showing below the cap. No where to go with this analogy to describe the slimy veil, cap and stem. The fibrous veil is a little hard to see under the thick slime layer of the second veil. It is reported to be mycorrhizal with Sitka spruce, I would suspect it may form an association with western hemlock as well.
Michael Kuo has a page on this fungus. I thought it interesting that he mentioned a Cortinarius as a possible look alike. I wouldn't think that a rusty spored cort would be very similar to a Hygrophorus, but I guess that anything is possible.
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/hygrophorus_olivaceoalbus.html

H. pudorinus var. pudorinus is the best fit for the mushroom I found in the muskeg. I had to use Hesler and Smiths 1963 monograph to feel confident about this species. The microscopic characteristics were helpful. The large size, pink color and relative dryness of the fungus were pretty good indicators. Found a hopelessly gushy love letter in the book (guess it had been untouched for awhile) that made me laugh. Not many people could combine love and species identifications... The photos I've found of this mushroom didn't really do it justice.

5 Goldeneyes, 2 common mergansers and a pelagic cormorant on the way to town. One common loon, a surf scoter, 3 pelagic cormorants on the return this afternoon.
Counted approximately 80 long tails in the channel around 2:30 this afternoon.