365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Lobsters In The Woods
Day 7: A prime candidate for Crow's Catalog of Freaky Fungi, "lobster mushrooms" are not a single organism, but a parasitic fungus (Hypomyces lactifluorum) which grows on another mushroom, generally those in the Russula and Lactarius genera. In the Pacific Northwest, H. lactifluorum most commonly occurs on R. brevipes. When R. brevipes appears without being infected with H. lactifluorum, it is white and can be rather large. Often, observers will find specimens which are only partly "lobsterized," the gills more or less intact and the cap showing blotches of white. Sometimes the colonization occurs before the host mushroom has emerged from the ground. Due to the fact that the host can be one of several species, the taste of Lobsters is inconsistent.
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