Life on the Outer Coast

The worse cold that I've had in recent memory kept me in a fog for most of Wednesday. I did manage to identify the white Hygrophorus from Indian River. H. eburnis, I read somewhere that this is the type species of the genus, can't seem to relocate that source, but this species was described by Fries. An all white mushroom with thick waxy gills which are somewhat decurrent. There was a light veil on the young mushroom which was only vaguely evident on the stem as a layer of tissue. The ones I found weren't viscid on the stem, Arora calls this species H. piceus. Hesler and Smith briefly mentions the relationship between H. piceus and H. eburnis in the description of a different species, but no other mention of H. piceus. The mushroom is still white after 4 days of drying on the kitchen counter.

H. olivaceoalbus under the large spruce in the SJ quad. It wasn't as dark as the ones I had found along Indian river trail. The amount of light affecting pigmentation?

Also I'm fairly sure there were two species of Cortinarius under the spruce. One was identifiable to C. semisanguinarus. The cap and stem aren't viscid and the color of the mushroom doesn't change with moisture. The caps have a rounded umbo particularly as they mature. The gills had a wine-red color over or really underlaying the rusty color from the ripening spores. The clincher was the dark reaction of the cap to 3%KOH. Michael Kuo fortunately made reference to the KOH reaction in his page http://www.mushroomexpert.com/cortinarius_semisanguineus.html,. My other sources didn't have that detail.This species was growing in some fairly dense clumps. Alot of the Cortinarius in this subgenus are good sources of dyes, I didn't try any on fiber, but did notice some red stains on the paper the corts were drying on.
The other Cortinarius (if it really is a different species) doesn't have the red coloration to the gills, but still has a dark reaction to KOH. All of the other features that I looked at were similar to the semisanguinarius. I haven't been able to find out how common the dark reaction to KOH is.

On Thursday afternoon walked to Heart lake from Thimbleberry trail head. One Swan was still around, still in the sedges at the far side of the lake. Found Naematoloma capnoides & Aleuria aurantica on the trail to Heart lake from Thimbleberry.
The Aleuria was in the road on the gravel. The common name of Aleuria is the organge peel fungus. It should be the inside out orange peel fungus. The outside is white and fuzzy (with a hand lens) and the hymenial layer is bright orange. The spores of Aleuria are rather distinctive. Once dispersed from the ascus it is easy to see the bumps and knobs, while in the ascus, the spores have two. There are 8 spores per ascus, each with 2 oil droplets, once dipersed from the ascus, the bumpy surface of each spore is apparent. The ascus is supposed to have an operculum, but I couldn't make it out. The pigment of the hymenial layer seems to be mostly in the paraphyses amongst the asci. Michael Kuo has a page about this fungus.
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/aleuria_aurantia.html
The Naematoloma was on roots or buried wood beside the trail under a hemlock. This saprophyte has a yellowish-buff colored cap, a slender dark stem and lovely purple-black spores.

A group of finches, too large to be siskins flew over, but I wasn't fast enough with the binoculars to get a look at them. Heard a nuthatch or two on the road. I had to wait for brief quiet moments when there weren't cars to listen and try to follow them. I didn't last too long, the noise made it rather difficult and I was low on energy.

The commute has been rather quiet, the goldeneyes have moved away from the dock, the most abundant species I see in the morning are pelagic cormorants.