Mushroom dyes

Last year I dyed a small sample of wool with the Cortinareus collected from the Sitka Spruce growing near the flagpole at SJ. I called that fungus. C. semisanguinarius. This year I recollected the red gilled Cort that was growing in the same spot and noticed that the cap seemed alot redder than semisanguinarius is supposed to be and decided that it must be C. phoeniceus var. occidentalis. They both have yellowish stems, red gills, turn black with KOH and have similar (I assume) ecology. The most significant differences seem to be the cap color and occasionally the stem color. The stem color seems to be more variable in semisanguinarius.

It would be nice to have something other than cap color to go on. The ones here aren't as red when wet as some of the photos would suggest, but when dry the caps did look alot redder.

I premordanted the silk scarf and some wool roving in Alum/cream of tartar. The scale I have at home is kind of a joke, so I guessed at the amount of alum. Basically less than a teaspoon for the 2 oz of material. While that simmered, I seperated the mushrooms that had been drying for the last few days. The two types (I had a second rusty orange Cortinarius drying as well) were not so easy to seperate when dry. The difference in the cap color fades with prolonged drying.

Put roughly one ounce of C. phoeniceus var occidentalis in a gallon jar and filled it with warm water. The water turned a pretty deep red in less than 5 minutes. I put the 10 or so of the other Cortinarius in quart jar and let them soak as well. The liquid was more of an orange color.

Rinsed the mordanted silk and wool before adding it to the jars, (the silk in the phoeniceus and the wool in the other). Simmered for 1 hour and let cool in the liquid for several hours. Rinsed both in warm water and let dry.

The scarf is a nice shade of orange red (deep orange red, #36 using the color chips) although it looks more like blood with the flash. The wool is what I would call a soft tangerine sort of orange (bright orange, #54). The orange wool is pretty similar to the color achieved last year. In fact it matches the same color chip. I don't know if I left a few of the phoeniceus in the mix or if in fact the two mushrooms dye wool the same color. Hopefully there are some of each left growing so I can try again.

It was a little slower of a mushroom week, but I did find another Suillus the other day along the Gavan trail. There were 3 or 4 of them under a Pinus contorta just off the board walk not too far past the last fennish muskeg.

Suillus umbonatus: it was growing in kind of a tight cluster near a shore pine so I'm assuming that it is associated with it, although there are Western Hemlock in the area as well.

Cap is viscid, somewhat irregular in shape, the ones I picked were 1. 5 , 2 and 3 inches in diameter. The color was somewhere between light and medium olive brown.

The pores are large and yellow (soft yellow, #84 from the yellow olive brown page). The stem was slender, 1, 1. 5 and 1.75 inches tall were what I measured. No glandular dots that I could see. There was an annulus, it looked like a brown, somewhat transparent slug wrapped around the upper stem. The annulus dried flat and rootbeer brown colored.

I didn't taste this one. No staining reactions. The cap flesh was light gray and the stem flesh a bit yellower than that of the cap.

S. umbonatus seems to be the best fit.

http://www.mykoweb.com/boletes/species/Suillus_umbonatus.html

Also found this relatively inconspicous Inocybe in the second growth off the Gavan trail. I'm not taking this genus any further at this point as there is only so much I can take on at one time. Thought I'd at least pay it my respects by acknowledging its existance.

I'm pretty certain that it is an Inocybe. The spore color is a bit on the dull side and the cap shape looks right. I've been struggling a bit with the subtleties of color lately, so I can only hope that I'm making the right call.

September 27

Julie Roller and I bypassed the two sunny days this week and choose the first rainy day to head up Harbor Gavan to collect seeds. We met around 2pm at Crescent harbor and Julie drove up the mountain. Happy that I brought all my rain gear, but wished I had brought the more serious rain coat.
The weather was merely wet when we started up the trail, wet enough though that we put our raingear on in the cab of her small truck. We were on our way to the meadows of the boulder field where the plants we searching might have ripe seeds. Most of the way along the ridge before the signpost marking the fork we could see the ocean and the surrounding peaks. This changed somewhere before we reached our destination, in fact the rain was intense and rather icy feeling. We passed only one group of fellow hikers (or people with bad timing) along the ridge.
I looked at the hourly weather records for the afternoon taken at sea level, I assume at the airport. They show a nice deterioration in conditions during our hike, but don't really give much of the feel of the wind driven rain in our faces.

1:53: 52F, 74% humidity, 9 miles visibility, winds from the SE at 9.2 miles no rain
2:41: 51 F, 83% humidity, 7 miles visibility, winds from the SE at 9.2 miles, 0.02 rain
2:53: 51, 83% humidity, 6 miles visibility, winds from SSE at 9.2 miles, 0.02 rain
3:53: 50, 87% humidity, 3 miles visibility, winds from SE at 11.5 miles, NA rain
4:22: 50 F, 94% humidty, 3 miles visibility, winds SE 11.5 (gust to 18.5), 0.05 rain

We started back around 4:00 or so just when the weather started to deteriorate nicely. It was easy enough to deal with on the way east, but I favored the head down push sort of posture on the way back to the trail head. The rain made it kind of difficult to use the binoculars that I had managed to bring this trip. Did see several Golden-crowned sparrows.

Both the Geum califolium and Cornus canadensis were a nice red color, the Athyrium was in places quite golden. The nicest micro view was of a patch of Gentiana platypetala blooming next to a patch of bright red Cornus. The only other flowers I saw in bloom were the Erigeron peregrinus and the very dissimilar Erigeron or former Aster. I did take a flower of each home with me. The flowers and leaves are quite dissimilar for purple daisy-like plants. The typical Erigeron has tidy looking heads with relatively short ray flowers. The margins of the leaves are smooth. The alternate daisy creature has larger heads with longer more irregular looking rays and toothed leaf margins. Both have similar looking subtending bracts that are quite hairy. I'm feeling fairly confident that it is Canadanthus modestus, but after all these years of everything being Erigeron, it is hard to shift gears.
I guess there was one Hiericium triste blooming as well.
Collected seeds from Veratrum viride, Anemone narcissifolium, Geranium erianthum, Saussurea perennis and Aconitum delphinifolium. Might try to get back for Gentiana seeds.

I did a quick collecting run Saturday evening through the Historical park and by the SJ lawn. I brought one quart sized ziploc bag which was happily inadequate for what I found on my pre-dinner run. In fact I had the bag over full to spilling and three large Hydnum repandums in my hand by the time I was back to the parking lot. In the park the Amanita muscaria are coming on nicely, there were several very small golden chanterelles and troops of Winter ones. Clitopilus under the spruce by the corner of the lower parking lot. Collected a deep red peppery Russula with yellow spores that I'll call R. queltiii. Also saw Clavaria purpurea, Cortinarius semi-sanguinarius and Entoloma stritus.

I did collect a few new things on the path home including Agaricus smithii.

I haven't found too many Agaricus in southeast outside the grocery store, so I was kind of excited to hear about one growing near the large spruce in the SJ lawn. There were 3 or 4 large mushrooms growing in grass and another one coming up. None of them were fully open, so I'm unsure how large this one can be. I did leave one to grow and am optimistic that it might be allowed to grow (I'm deluding myself on this one). The two individuals I brought home were about 4 inches tall, the stems were rather stout (ca. an inch in diameter) with a larger base. The cap and stem have kind of a golden cast to them that increased with age. The flesh or surface didn't show any staining. There wasn't a distinctive odor to me. It is supposed to have an almond odor, but it isn't apparent to my weak nose. The ring is membranous, but difficult to see with the cap unexpanded. The base of the stem was large enough to key this one to A. smithii.

Tricholoma pessundatum: The Tricholoma was growing under Western Hemlock in moss under Sitka spruce beside the path to the plaque on Merrill Rock. I collected several as the fruiting bodies were rather abundant.

The cap was medium red Brown (#43) with darker small fibrils. The caps were somewhat viscid. The margin is blackened in the older individuals. The photo looks a little oranger than the mushroom in hand. The mature caps I measured were 65cm, 54, 52, and 50cm in diameter. The young caps are reminiscent of the shape of a Russula. The gills are white with brown stains or flecks. The stem is light brown with darker lengthwise lines, kind of fibrous looking.

It took a couple of trys to identify this one. It keyed to Tricholoma stans in the PNW key, mostly because I bypassed T. pessundtum because the gill margins didn't have the dark edge. T. stans isn't documented in the PNW or in California, so I was feeling a bit dubious. In the key to Tricholoma at the Mushroom expert site, it keyed to T. pessundtum which is documented in the PNW. Arora says that it should be avoided unless one wants to spend the night violently ill. I'm content to eat king boletes and hedgehogs.

The last one didn't come from the park but was a left over from the insect collecting earlier in the week. It was growing on the ground in the young growth forest (Pine, Hemlock, Spruce etc) off the lower trail of Gavan Trail.

Cordyceps is an obligate parasite of either arthropods or other fungi, in the case of C. ophioglossoides of an Elaphomyces (deer truffle). Unfortunately, I didn't dig down far enough to see if there was a truffle below. Seems like I'm not the first person to pick this fungus without adequate digging.

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/cordyceps_ophioglossoides.html

Despite all of the emphasis on fungi and the required focus on the ground to find them, I have noticed a few birds lately. There are 6 nuthatches, chickadees, juncos and song sparrows working the feeder. One Golden-crowned sparrow was in the garden on Saturday. One day last week there were about 20 Black-legged Kittiwakes on the path to town. Friday I saw one Phalarope on the way to town and Fork-tailed Storm petrels on the way home. They were there on Saturday and today as well.

Boletes and others

Found 4 edible (that is not previously eaten) Boletus edulis last week. Three by the cemetary and one by SJ. The first three were somewhat eaten by fly or moth larvae, but the last one looked perfect. The larvae were pretty easy to remove by slicing the mushrooms and soaking them briefly in salty water. I'm not particularly sensitive to the idea of insects in my boletes, so I ate them and feed them to guests. I gave the fourth one to a group of Elderhostel folks to whom I gave a talk. They were particularly nervous about eating mushrooms since one of the company had a relative who required a new liver because of misidentification. Hopefully, the bolete left them with a more positive impression.



Also found Suillus fuscotomentosus in the muskeg near where we collected samples for the Mt. Edgecumbe projects. This species lacks a veil, the stipe is similar in color to the cap with dark brown punctuate fibers. The stipe is slight larger at the base than at the apex.
The cap is yellowish (#67 brillant OrangeYellow) with tufts of dark brown fibers. The diameter of the cap of the ones I saw was up to 5 inches (the one in the photo is 6.5 cm). It doesn't have a particular odor. The spore print is olive brown. What seperates this species of Suillus from a similar species (tomentosus) is that it does not stain blue when bruised.


This one is allegedly edible, however Arora says that it isn't particularly palatable.

Found Suillus tomentosus under the pines by the Mt. Edgecumbe High School Gym. It looked very similar in color, shape and size but stained blue when bruised. Despite this blue staining, this one is supposed to be edible, but not palatable.

Also under the pine tree at the gym was Suillus brevipes. A much tidier looking bolete. The cap was a warm light brown and the pores bright yellow. No blue staining.

Also collected a much larger (10 cm) Chalciporus piperatus than I usually find. It was more of a medium yellow brown than the red-brown that is typical. It was also much more irregular in shape than the smaller ones. The flesh of the cap was pale yellow to white. The stipe was bright yellow at base as is typcial. The stipe flesh is also yellow. The stipe was narrow for theLess than 1cm across and about 5 cm long. kind of mishapen. Because it was so different from what I usually see, I was compelled to check more characters. Yes, I had to taste it and was very hot.

The Leccinum scabrum were fruiting at St. Peter's church yard under the birch.


Russula emetica is another one I see every year, but still felt compelled to taste it (very hot), look at the spore color (white) and key it out. This one was growing in scrubby hemlock forest with Lysichiton in the understory near the bench muskeg off the Indian River trail.

Tom Volk had this to say about identification of Russula emetica "Even if you find a red Russula and think it's R. emetica, you're probably wrong." There is a longer explanation of the issues regarding identifying Russulas in general at both his post on R. emetica and on the Mushroom Expert, both seem to agree that one should treat all identifications as tentative. http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/sep2004.html

Collected a few mushrooms from the cedar dominated forest west of the Gavan Hill trail. There were several species that I hadn't noticed previously (yes, I've been sleep walking for years).

Chroogomphus vinicolor: I've found a number of Chroogomphus tomentosus, but never this species, but I haven't spent alot of time looking for fungi in cedar dominated sites. Cedar is not an ectomycorrhizal species, so the fungi that I've spent most of my time looking for are not present.

The overall size and shape are similar to C. tomentosus, but the color is darker and red brown. It kind of had a dark red wine sort of color to it, but I would have poured the wine through a filter before I drank it. The cap was smooth and viscid when wet, and dried to a nice sheen. The gills are distant and decurrant. This mushroom is most reliably differentiated from a similar species (C. rutilis more properly known as C. ochraceous) by the thick walled cystidia. Happily this feature was quite distinct.
Conifer forest, particularly those with Pine is where this species is said to grow in the PNW. I found it growing in a scrubby mixed conifer (Cedar, Western Hemlock) forest near a muskeg. There was Lysichiton americanum in the understory. There were several individuals in the area, growing on the ground. C. vinicolor is mycorrhizal. This species is edible, but these were too far gone to tempt me. I'm fairly certain that all Chroogomphus turn purple when cooked , but I'm not sure which pigment is responsible, what was interesting was that some of the ones I brought home developed purple stains after a couple of days. Decompostion?http://www.svims.ca/council/Gomphi.htm

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/chroogomphus_vinicolor.html

The next two species gave me a bit of grief. One because I was impatient and the other because I haven't yet found a great species match. They are both members of the Entolomataceae, with pink spores and Omphaloid stature, more apparent in one (gray/brown) than the other. Both were growing on the ground near cedar.

Leptonia serrulata: This should have been easy. It has a black or purple black, cap about 2 cm across, the gills were distant and white with a very striking black edge. The stem was gray/purple/black, slender about 3.5cm long.
This one drove me a little crazy and is a fine example of why one should make a spore print before proceeding with a new species. When I first looked at it, I didn’t notice the slight omphaloid stature and decided it was a Mycena. Oh my, that was kind of a frustrating error. Even looked at the spores and decided that perhaps a Mycena could have slightly angular/nodulose spores. Kept trying all sorts of keys and descriptions and just couldn’t cram it into any species. Gave up and went to sleep in the hope that it would all make sense in the morning. Indeed it did, the pink spore print was quite useful.

Leptonia in CA “fond of fruiting under fern fronds in redwood duff” In the PNW “frequent under alder and western red cedar”. There were two growing on the ground on a vertical eroded edge near the base of a Yellow Cedar.

The other species of Leptonia was less distinct. The cap was small, 1.2 cm , closest to gray/yellow/brown, with distinct umbo, cap flesh thin and white. The margin was distinctly striate. The gills were white, widely spaced and waxy, somewhat decurrent, the stipe whitish gray, 2mm wide, 5cm tall.

It keyed to Leptonia undulatella in Arora. I don't have a good description of this species, so I'm less than certain of its identity.

Lepiota magnispora (saprophyte): This is new species for me, in fact I don't remember finding a Lepiota in the "wild" up here before. The most similar mushrooms are the yellow sometimes found on soil in house plants. This particular Lepiota was growing on cedar and seemed to be attached to dead wood in a notch near the base of a pair of trees growing very close to one another. Lepiota wasn't on Hennon's list of cedar fungi.

In "Mushrooms Demystified" this keys out to Lepiota clypeolaria, I was happy with that, Arora mentions that clypeolaria probably represents a collective species, so what else is new? However looking at the description of and commentary about L. cypeolaria at the Mushroom Expert site, made me a bit less certain about the identification. Had to turn to the microscope to positively identify this species. The spores are quite long with a small hooked beak. This species is also supposed to have brighter colors and a more distinct "eye" in the center of the cap.

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/lepiota_magnispora.html

http://www.svims.ca/council/Lepiota.htm

Macrotyphyla juncea: also known as Fairy Hair. It is a very slender light colored slender fungus less than 2 inches tall and probably around a millimeter or two wide. They were growing on dead cedar foliage. They were quite abundant once one's eye was oriented to their overall look. Basically they looked like thick threads sticking up from the duff. http://www.mykoweb.com/CAF/species/Macrotyphula_juncea.html

Also noticed Russula bicolor and Russula fragilis in the woods.

The Cortinarius on left was growing closer to the trail. The cap is quite viscid with a distinctive color pattern. The veil fibrils are noticable on the stem. The spores were bright rusty brown, so I'm content with calling it a Cortinarius, but admit that it could be a Hebeloma.

On the way back to UAS picked a Russula from the roadside under the spruce and alders near the ramp. THe spore print is quite yellow and the taste intensely hot. It keyed to Russula queletii in the PNW key. The description from PNW reads:

CAP 4-10 cm, purplish red, wine purple, brownish violet, usually fairly dark, drying pruinose, fleshy, peeling 1/2 to 2/3, striate only in age; flesh white. ODOR pleasant. TASTE very hot. GILLS cream, subdecurrent, close. STEM strong red or purplish. SPORE PRINT cream to light yellow: HABITAT conifers.

The remarks section was kind of amusing, I translated the following to mean that we included this information to comfort you poor fools who indulge in Russula identification.

REMARKS " we have included the descriptions to comfort the many who will find purple capped, red or purple-stemmed, hot-tasting Russulas with creamy spores."

A few more Fungi

Thursday the 4th was the third class of the mushroom identification workshop, so had a good reason to go collecting instead of spending the entire day in the lab packing biology lab kits.

Collected along the lower part of Gavan trail, the cemetary, Starrigavan, Totem park and Halibut pt rec. area. Didn't spend much time at any spot, because I wanted to see what sort of variety of fungi were available and I had limited time available.

Found Lactarius rufus along the Gavan trail, just townward of the small almost fen-like muskeg with the domestic Spiraea. It looked a bit larger than what I had seen previously, so I foolishly tasted it. Suffice it to say that it was intensely hot and peppery.

The mushrooms were less abundant than the last time I looked along the trail. Most of the Russulas and Lactarius were either too far gone or too immature. I did pick up a very large Cortinarius. The rusty brown spore print was about 4 inches in diameter. The stem was fairly even in thickness and had a few rusty colored fibrils just above the middle. The cap was somewhat viscid, but the stem was not. I haven't come up with a satisfactory species name yet for this one.

Found several Clitopilus prunulus in the grass near the Sitka spruce lining the cemetary road. They seem to be pretty abundant this year. The compactness of this species when immature is striking. Okay, it isn't unusual for something young to be small, but still they were an interesting form.

Amanita muscaria, both yellow and red forms, were growing at the base of several Sitka Spruce along the west side of the cemetary.

Carried on the Starrigavan and HPR. Collected a selection of Russula, Lactarius deliciosus, a Cortinarius or two, Amanita vaginata, Hydnum umbilicatum, H. repandum, Pholiota flammans (HPR), and Coprinus atramentarius. The Coprinus was growing on the woodchips on the path near the parking lot at Mosquito Cove.

I had plenty to share with folks, but the class was significantlly enriched by the nice variety of fungi that Jen and Vicki brought to class. Vicki collected from Skagway and Jen locally.
Jen brought Helvella lacunosa, Leccinum scabrum, Hydnellum suavavolens, Pholiota flammans, and several Russula and Cortinarius spp.



Vicki brought in Hydnelllum peckii, Amanita muscaria (yellow), another Hydnaceae that I dried for later, a bright yellow Russula looking mushroom, Sarcodon imbrictus and Phaeolepiota aurea.

I've seen Sarcodon imbricatus in Kelp Bay and near Hidden Falls, but don't remember seeing it on the outside coast. Could be here though.
Rich Philips has collected Phaeolepiota aurea from Green Lake Rd. and I've found it in Kelp bay.


Phaeolepiota aurea



Sarcodon imbricatus

Bird watching from the house has been rather rewarding the last few days. The bird feeder has been visited by a Steller's jay, several chickadees, 3 nuthatches and a song sparrow. Robins, both juvenile and adults, Varied thrush, Ruby and Golden Crowned kinglets, a Sapsucker, juncos, Rufous hummers and Crossbills have been in the garden.

As of yesterday, I had seen two nuthatches at the feeder, today there were three visiting at the same time. One seems rounder and larger than the other two. It was also the one that held still enough that the photo was adequate. I sat out on the deck for about a half an hour listening and waiting for an opportunity to get a photo. Deleted most of them, nuthatches are highly mobile little birds and the autofocus on the camera isn't functional at the moment.

The chickadees and nuthatches weren't concerned enough about my presence and proximity (about 6ft) to avoid the feeder, but the Steller's jay did some serious squawking. The nuthatches were not too thrilled with the presence of the Steller's jay. They skittered up the trunk (pursued by the jay) and eventually flew off. The jay didn't follow them away from the feeder tree.

Although I haven't seen a warbler for the last couple of days, I'm not convinced that they are gone yet. Probably just not looking out the window at the right time.

As I'm writing this, the chickadees, jay and nuthatches are at the feeder and deck rail at the same time.