Have you ever noticed something, then you can’t stop seeing it — everywhere?
Let me give an example. Say you purchase an electric blue car. You think the color is fairly rare. But as you’re driving it around town, you start seeing electric blue vehicles everywhere.
Now do you get what I’m saying?
Another example that comes to mind… I dislike Uggs. A lot of people wear them, so please don’t take offense to my personal taste. But to me, Uggs look like astronaut shoes, they’re expensive and in the Maine winter, they seem a bit impractical. I’m pretty sure the standard Uggs aren’t waterproof. Actually, they look like they might be able to sponge up enough water to weigh at least 10 pounds each. OK — I’ll stop. The point is, I see Uggs everywhere. On my boss, my best friend, my grandmother.
How is this post about mushrooms, you ask? Well — the same thing happens to me in the wilderness. Once I notice something, I keep noticing it throughout the trail. For example, tree mushrooms.
While exploring the Northern Headwaters Trail on Whitten Hill in Montville recently, I saw one tree mushroom, which led me to another, and another. I dutifully took photos, and here they are. I attempted to identify some of them using the “National Audubon Society Field Guide to Mushrooms” and “The Complete Mushroom Hunter” by Gary Lincoff, both amazing gifts by a Maine mushroom expert. However, I’m no expert. And there is one important thing about mushrooming: mushrooms are difficult for amateurs (like me) to positively identify and many of them are dangerous (toxic). So don’t even touch a mushroom if you can’t positively identify it as nontoxic, let alone take a nibble. That said, photographing mushrooms and trying to identify them (and learning about them) can be a lot of fun.
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These big, purple-red mushrooms look like hemlock varnish self, which can be shiny reddish to brownish-orange or black varnish, but this mushroom has look alikes, such as G. lucid, G. oregonense and G. curtisii.
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I couldn’t find a great match for this one in my guidebook, but it looks like maybe a multi-color gill polypore, which grows on dead deciduous wood, though it has also been reported on conifers.
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This looks like a couple old tinder polypores, though they are a lot darker on their undersides than the photo in the book. Tinder polypores grow on dead deciduous trees or wounds in living trees, including maple, birch, beech, hickory, poplar and cheery.
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No idea! Couldn’t find this in my mushroom guide.
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Also no idea. What is this? I think it needs a makeover.
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This looks like a hoof conk –perennial, inedible fungus that cause white heart rot. Hoof conks are common on oaks and can cause large economic losses. It tricked me at first because it’s all mossy.
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This also looks like hoof conk.
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The easiest to identify was the red band fungus, which has an orange-red band (more orange, I think) on it. This fungus I see all the time while walking in the woods, probably because it’s so bright. It’s inedible and grows on conifers and hardwoods. It’s common on dead trees and logs causing brown rot.
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This, my friends, was an impressive sight. A log covered with white mushrooms. Looks like a massive colony of violet polypore, which are common on dead aspen, but there are types of fungi that look similar.
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This, my friends, was an impressive sight. A log covered with white mushrooms. Looks like a massive colony of violet polypore, which are common on dead aspen, but there are types of fungi that look similar.
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The easiest to identify was the red band fungus, which has an orange-red band (more orange, I think) on it. This fungus I see all the time while walking in the woods, probably because it’s so bright. It’s inedible and grows on conifers and hardwoods. It’s common on dead trees and logs causing brown rot.
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The easiest to identify was the red band fungus, which has an orange-red band (more orange, I think) on it. This fungus I see all the time while walking in the woods, probably because it’s so bright. It’s inedible and grows on conifers and hardwoods. It’s common on dead trees and logs causing brown rot.