Glowing Fungi or Mushrooms ?

I had taken a walk here in southern NH around 6 – 7 I have a forest behind where I live and of course like to see what I can find . I did find something I had not noticed before, Glowing Fungus or Mushrooms! I tried to take a photo with a digital camera I was trying out to see if I might buy it. I am but I digress they did not work at all.
I am not sure which ones glow either, as there are a number of them all in the area. Though one place appeared to only have the glowing fungi or mushrooms

I know they like sawdust, oaks, and other Trees that have a highly acidic bark such as black cherry and birch.
I do not know if they still are alive I so I can add a photo what I think is them . In the day ca any one guess at what they are.
I am also working on getting a really good shot at my rodent control agent AKA the Owls so I can ID it I have some I took last year but I am not sure if they are good enough for IDing the guy . But I like having the owls and glowing fungi around

Thanks

What you were seeing is probably a member of the genus Armillaria, more commonly known as Honey fungus. There are numerous species that are bioluminescent. They're also a destructive rhizomorph (connect underground forming a single large organism) that form white rot on trees and their roots. It's a big problem in the UK.

Less likely is the Jack-o-lantern mushroom, which is hard to mistake. It's very, very orange.

And both will make you rather sick.

Pamola said:

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And both will make you rather sick.

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Actually, the Armillaria species are supposed to be edible and quite tasty, though I'll admit I have avoided them for two reasons. Usually some critter, like a slug, has gotten there first. And you would not want to confuse the Armillaria with the Gallerina mushrooms found in the same habitat. The latter will kill you, almost for sure.

More on the Armillaria

Bon apetit!

Thanks Yes the photo is what they look like .
I have no plans on eating them . i know of one mushroom that is safe to cook and eat I am not sure of it's name with out a book but they are very mild .
they are large and round . but to my knowledge do not glow .

Armillaria mellea, or the honey mushroom, is one common cause of "foxfire", but a couple of others in the Northeast woods also glow. And yes, the honey mushroom is highly edible when young and tender. Clitocybe illudens and Panus stypticus come to mind, as well as the poisonous Jack-o-lantern mushroom that is sometimes confused for the highly edible Chanterelle. I have only seen this phenomenon when it's been very dark and the glow was faint but obvious.

I had to learn a bunch of the common mushrooms of the N.E. for a grad class in Mycology and I'm brushing up on my IDing skills to do a Mushroom Meander at Great Glen next month. Cool stuff .... well, to me anyway!

I've seen bioluminescent fungus a few times - in MA and NH. The first time I saw it, I tried to id the fungus, but couldn't reach a conclusion I was satisfied with. I do remember learning along the way that the glowing is not a constant - that it can depend on other factors, such as available moisture. In the sightings where I've bothered to turn on a flashlight, the fungus has been on a tree limb laying on the ground, usually small (2" diameter or less), both birch and cherry.

The Foolproof Four

Americans are pretty squeemish about eating wild mushrooms, and since we have never received basic training growing up (as we would have a few thousand years ago), it's probably a pretty good defense against dying from mushroom poisoning.

My approach was first to learn the deadliest mushrooms, the Amanitas, Gallerina, and then some of the other toxic ones.

But if you are looking for safe eats, you can do more than just the giant puffballs it sounds like RGF1 is describing. Stick to the "Foolproof Four" and you are pretty safe.

First, the shaggy mane, or Coprinus comatus, which is yummy with eggs, should not be mixed with alcohol, and should be eaten young.


Then you've got your meadow mushroom, or Agaricus campestris, a close relative of the basic store mushroom.


Then, onto the spring treat of the morels, Morchella escuelenta.


The tour ends with the giant puffballs , Calvatia gigantea. Good to eat as long as the flesh is white. Apparently the record for one of these babies is five feet in diameter, and 50 pounds. Enough for the whole tribe!



What else do others like to nibble on?

Cheers

whitelief said:

Actually, the Armillaria species are supposed to be edible and quite tasty

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My mistake! I try to play it safe when gathering mushrooms, only really looking for morels, oysters, chanterelles, black trumpets, chickens, and blewitts, but I shouldn't assume there aren't others out there.

I actually saw some of these the other day. maybe i should go back...

All the ones above are also fairly foolproof, whitelief. Nothing's as distinct as a morel though!

There's nothing else in the woods that looks like a black trumpet:


the chanterelle as well. They're both delicious


here's the chicken. also distinct:


I won't put up pics of the blewitt and oyster because they can be confused with other poisonous mushrooms to the untrained eye (or nose in the case of the oyster). Going to stick to the foolproof ones.

Happy hunting!

whitelief said:

The tour ends with the giant puffballs , Calvatia gigantea. Good to eat as long as the flesh is white. Apparently the record for one of these babies is five feet in diameter, and 50 pounds. Enough for the whole tribe!

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I have eaten plenty of these. The biggest one I have picked was the size of a soccer ball.

For the smaller ones though. Make sure you cut through the center. It should be solid, with absolutely no voids and pure white. If it starts getting yellow it will taste lousy. If it has voids it isn't a puffball. It is poisonous.

Very tasty cooked in butter or olive oil.

Keith

I went mushrooming with my parents as a kid and knew the boletes, russulas, lactarius, and others that they considered edible. They'd never have touched the ones I feel safe with now- and I've lost my confidence and forgotten what I learned from them. My mother once told me, as we were hunting in the Concord MA town forest, that she could tell that Polish people had been there before us, because their preferences were different from those of us Lithuanians, and they'd left "ours" alone.

You can grow your own chicken of the woods, and many others. There is a company that sells the spores. Once you inoculate logs and stumps w/ the spores, you get shrooms for years. I have harvested many pounds, of a few different kinds, for the past 4 years. Check out fungiperfecti.com.

The orange/sulfur colored chickens appear earlier in the year and as said are very distinctive.
Hen o' the Woods are a grey/tan and out now. They can grow to mamoth size at the base of old oaks, often covered by fallen leaves.
Like Pamola, I pick only what I'm sure of.
When the honeys came out in force last week in NH I left them alone, they were larger and did not have the vail that I'm used to seeing on the honeys in CT.
My favorite is the King Bolete, a large 'shroom found under spruce. Boletes have pores not gills.

So many budding (pun intended) mycologists here! Care to test your skills?

I'd love to be able to identify these:
(I don't know the answers, I didn't take any spore prints, and I didn't inspect gill attachments closely. The photos are all I've got.)

Names in quotes are my own fanciful inventions.

#1 - "toad bathtub"

#2 - "meringue"

#3 - "icicles"

#4 - "jellyfish"

#1 would be hard to ID at this point ... it's an old specimen and I'd have to know where it was growing and some other characteristiscs I can't see from the pic to tell for sure. It could be almost anything really.

#2 is Pleurotus porrigens or something very closely allied. It's in the oyster family and I think this one is commonly called Angel Wings.

#3 is Hericium coralloides, the Coral Hedgehog.

#4 is a puzzle to me. I have seen it up here in the Whites this summer but have not gotten around to IDing it. It's not one I'd been familiar with previously. I'm working on it though .

A lead on #4

Okay, #4 might be Leotia lubrica, common name Jelly Babies. Described by my field guide Mushrooms Demystified, as round to convex cap slightly lobed or knobby, viscid to slimy when moist. color is yelow, ochre to olive or sometimes greenish-brown. Flesh is gelatinous and often transluscent. Stalk is hollow or filled with gel. Habitat is given as clustered in duff, soil or very rotten wood under both hardwoods and conifers.

I think this might be it .

Thanks! All those photos were taken along the Webster Cliff Trail last weekend, primarily on rotting logs in shady spots under fir or mixed forest.
The "toad bathtub" is really large - up to 30cm across. Very hard to miss, there were many of them, very uniform in shape, color and surface texture.

Edit: I'm wondering if it might be the same as another common one, also with short stems and large gills - it's a honey color at the center, paling toward white at the edge, shaped like a nearly-flat parasol (slightly more convex near the center). Some are two feet wide. If it curled up at the edges with age, it could wind up looking like the one in the photo.

I agree with gaiagirl on all points, and can add a little! Holy moly! Your naturalist knowledge is truly humbling and always informative.

#1. Can't tell!

#2 definitely looks like an oyster, but I wouldn't be sure without holding it 4 inches from my face for 10 minutes or so. a simple nibble will tell if it's an oyster or Lentinellus ursinus, which I'm sure anyone would promptly spit out and immediately look for a palate cleaner of some kind.

#3. I love this guy! I see the coral hedgehog all the time here in vermont.

#4. Bingo! They're Jelly babies, leotia lubrica. it's not a true jelly fungus. It's actually a sac fungus, in the division ascomycota, like morels. You can eat jelly babies, but it's usually not recommended or done.

Jelly fungi are usually amorphous and attach directly to a dead piece of wood, although they do some in a large variety of non-shapes and sizes within that description. Most are edible as well. They aren't my cup of tea, but I have forager friends who use them to flavor soup.

edit: nevermind! beaten to the jelly babies confirmation! impressed again.

Shroomheads and fun guys, what's the best field guide (hopefully with a key) to our local fungi?

el-bagr said:

Shroomheads and fun guys, what's the best field guide (hopefully with a key) to our local fungi?

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I actually don't have a good one (not the best way to go) but the two books to get are the audubon guide (good for taking with you), and demystifying mushrooms that gaiagirl was talking about.

Demystifying is quite a tome. Good for home identification.
People choose the audubon guide over peterson's quite often because the audubon one provides great pictures, not just color plates.

Pamola,

I thought the jelly babies probably had to be a morel or relative, but have not had any ID experience with them beforehand; thanks for the information. There are so many to learn and know. I need to do a prep for the walk I'm doing in October and even then I know for sure there will be some I don't know; either never learned or families I've forgotten to some extent. Impossible to know everything, but always fun to learn more. Hope there's still plenty of them around come the first weekend in October.

I agree about field guides, but I also love to have the folding laminted Peterson (I think it is anyway) that is easily found in many bookstores. It will give you general characteristics for the groups and get you close enough while you're in the field, where it is obviously very easy to carry and manage.