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.
Monday, September 30, 2019
Red Buttons
Day 352: Mushrooms are popping up everywhere this autumn, demonstrating the most diverse collection of species I've seen in many years. My skills at identification of fungi are minimal at best. I know what I eat, and I know not to eat anything I don't know. I've gone as far as placing these cute little red buttons in Hygrophorus and have not ruled out H. speciosus, although they are not growing under larch (the species occurs under other evergreens), but even so, there are half a dozen species they could be, and without checking spores under the microscope, I can't be more definite. In any event, some Hygrophorus species are edible, but come with the caution that the common name "waxy-cap" is well-deserved. Apparently, even edible waxy-caps have all the gustatory appeal of gnawing on a block of paraffin.
Labels:
Hygrophorus,
Longmire campground,
mushrooms
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