Mushroom Walk

[gitano]

Sometimes in the winter when it's cold and dreary, as it is today, I like to look back at pictures taken during the green time of the year. One Sunday afternoon last fall, my wife and I decided to take a break and take a little walk around one of the local parks. Nothing special, just something to break up the daily grind so to speak.

I try not to go anywhere without my camera, and on this day that practice was well-rewarded. The mushrooms were out like I have never seen them before. This was a particularly wet summer, and I suppose that's why, but whatever the reason, it was definitely a 'mushroom year'. Some of these boletes were more than a foot (30cm) across the tops.

Paul

This is the base of one of those big boletes:

 

[skinny]

Nice pictures there, cant tell if any of them are tasty ones. the last one looks familiar.

 

[gitano]

Thanks skinny.

Technically, the boletes are edible - they're the big ones in pictures 8, 10, 11, and 13 - BUT, by the time they are this big, they are completely infested with maggots. Up close, they're quite disgusting actually.

The mushrooms in pictures 6, 17, and 19 are amanita sp. (Fly Agarics), and are supposedly deathly poisonous. However, "poison" has many definitions, among which is hallucinogenic. Some people assert that these are "hallucinogenic" and not "poisonous". All of the published references I have on mushrooms ascribe LETHALITY to amanita mushrooms.

Of the rest of them, I don't have a clue. I strongly suspect that some are edible, some are edible but not tasty, and some are "poisonous". To tell the truth, there are only a few mushrooms that I am willing to trust my identification skills sufficiently enough to eat.

Paul

 

[Tamus]

Thanks skinny.

Technically, the boletes are edible - they're the big ones in pictures 8, 10, 11, and 13 - BUT, by the time they are this big, they are completely infested with maggots. Up close, they're quite disgusting actually.

The mushrooms in pictures 6, 17, and 19 are amanita sp. (Fly Agarics), and are supposedly deathly poisonous. However, "poison" has many definitions, among which is hallucinogenic. Some people assert that these are "hallucinogenic" and not "poisonous". All of the published references I have on mushrooms ascribe LETHALITY to amanita mushrooms.

Of the rest of them, I don't have a clue. I strongly suspect that some are edible, some are edible but not tasty, and some are "poisonous". To tell the truth, there are only a few mushrooms that I am willing to trust my identification skills sufficiently enough to eat.

Paul

Some of the Amanitas are fascinatingly lethal. LIke the Death Cap and Destroying angel, superb toxins. Other's, like Fly Agaric are actually favoured by Laplanders for the more exotic intoxicant effect, allegedly, once passed through the kidneys of a Reindeer (Caribou). On the other hand Amanita Ceasarea is the true basis of a Ceasar's salad. Birch Boletes are a bit bitter to my taste but the Suilluses and Sparissus Crispa are Ok/Good.

 

[Dakaras]

Nice Pics....I stick to field mushrooms and puff ball thats as much as Im prepared to risk ....Id love to know more and a few times set off with a guide book, but when all was said and done didnt trust myself......I think you really need to go out with someone who knows the score.