Day 43: It shames me to admit it, but there are many things growing on my
property which I have never bothered to identify; indeed, many of them
might be unidentifiable by the means available to me, although there
must be an equal number which should be fairly easy to sort out.
Specifically, my yard sprouts mushrooms, most of which I've walked away
from feeling assured of sinking in failure before putting a metaphorical
toe in the water, but after thirty-plus years of observing them, these
little purple guys convinced me that they might not pose as much of a
challenge as I expected. I popped the cap off one and found brownish
gills and a faint veil where the cap was separating from the stipe. The
"spiderweb" veil was sufficient to place my specimen in Cortinarius, and
the narrow stipe and lilac colouration suggested C. salor. Just for the
heck of it, even though no significant enlargement was present at the
base of the stipe, I decided to do a quick chem test to assure myself
that it wasn't C. olympianus. Nope, the flesh did not turn red when I
dripped ammonia on it. I will still beg my readers to allow me the right
to be wrong. Cortinarius is a huge genus and I do not have descriptions
for all the species it contains, but given that C. salor is common in
our woods, that will be what I call this little lilac 'shroom until
someone corrects me.
Update:
examination of the spores has caused me to re-evaluate my original
identification. I now believe this to be C. iodeoides. See post for 28
November 2020 for further details.
