Life on the Outer Coast

Collecting mushrooms has slowed down a little, mostly because I've been busy doing other things. Still there are a few things that I've managed to figure out over the last week or so.

Camarophyllus pratensis: This species was growing on the lawn at Sheldon Jackson.

The cap is a orange or coral color with a somewhat variable shape. Neither the cap or stem are viscid. The The gills are decurrent white and subdistant. The stipe was also white.

The cap color, lack of stickiness and staining and habitat are pretty distinctive, apparently the gills are often the same color as the cap. In Mushrooms Demystified the habitat is either open or grassy places or under Redwoods.

Xylaria cornu-damae: on unidentifiable rotten wood near beginning of Gavan Hill trail. The stalks weren't divided and antler-like as are those of X. hypoxylon. The stalks were more cylindrical and all black on the outer surface. I wasn't really sure what it was until I cut a section lengthwise. The interior was white with black perithecia lining the margin.

The lack of branching, club-shaped head, minutely bumpy surface and white interior seem to be good characters. I'm not entirely sure of the species. The Pacific Northwest Key council key leads me to that species without much trouble and the description seems good. There is a note that suggests that X. longipes might occur in the area, but it isn't documented. Both longipes and cornu-damae are said to occur on hardwood.

Tricholoma vaccinum: Alice Island under open grown Sitka spruce. If I'm remembering right they were growing in a manner that I could call gregarious. Caps were dark brown with darker fibrils, not quite what I would call scales. A key character for this species seems to be the veil remnants on the cap margin. A similar species T. imbricatum lacks the remnants on the cap margin. The stem was light with dark fibrils and hollow in the middle.

The other species seen recently that looks somewhat similar is Tricholoma pessundatum. The viscid cap is a good character to differentiate it. The cap is dark brown black in the center and somewhat lighter at the edge. The stem surface has vertical fibers. There was a strange odor to the fresh cap that dissapated. A patch of this species was growing on SJ campus near the museum in a relatively open woodsy spot under spruce. The largest of the caps were 5-6.5 inches across.

Cortinarius multiformis: Alice island growing under an open grown Sitka Spruce.
Kind of an attractive mushroom with a yellow brown cap, slightly darker brown edge. The cap was slightly viscid when wet and slightly shiny when dry. Has a thicker cobwebby veil that persists on the edge of the cap. Young gills are pale. The stipe is pale with brown fibrils, with a bulbous base.

Hygrophorus camarphyllus vs calophyllus: Alice island on the gravel walk behind the kindegarten that leads to a view of Sealing cove harbor. There were several under Sitka alder growing on the gentle slope from the walk.

Kind of difficult to make a decision about this one. The gills certainly aren't pink as described as sometimes occuring with H. calophyllus.