Mark Bower sent this report of the flush of fresh mushrooms he found September 23-25th above Bull Creek.We had had several inches of rain after a dry spell and the fungi were all ready to spread their spores before winter arrives. In addition to finding a tree covered with delicious Chicken of the Woods which stuffed our refrigerator to the bursting point, he reported a tremendous diversity of other species.
"The final tally of species from the mornings of Sat, Sun and Mon was 127. These are the species I could put a name to. There were many others that I couldn't name, and these are not included in the list. Here is the link to my Flickr album, "Weekend at Bull Creek". It contains 36 species of fungi and slime molds, plus Ghost Pipe and Pinesap."
The "Ghost Pipe and Pinesap" are actually plants that don't photosynthesize. They will be to topic of the next blog. Meanwhile, you can plunge in to all of Mark's Flicker albums at this link.
So where were all these mushrooms hiding, and why. Margret Atwood has some deep thoughts in her poem September Mushrooms.
"Chicken" recipes by Maxine Stone are here with more in her book, Missouri's Wild Mushrooms.