First Frost

Earlier this week the temperature dropped below freezing. Last weekend I had the pleasure of showing some friends a spot I knew to be good for hedgehogs and chanterelles and as it happened we found a small quantity of both.

Then this weekend I visited some old haunts to see if anything was left, and to my delight I found a good number of fairly large belly button hedghogs, and some late Golden Chanterelles. I also visited a log where I had left an Admirable Bolete and found that it had begun to rot. So with the data from several years now in hand I came up with the following table for when the various choice forest mushrooms are likely to flush. I'll adjust it in the future as I gather more data.

	August		September		October		November		December
Lobster
White Chanterelle
Pacific Golden Chanterelle
Cauliflower
Bleeding Milk Caps
Admirable Bolete
Mika Cap
Pear Shaped Puffball
Conifer Coral Hericium
Club
Fluted Black Elfin Saddles
Hedghogs
Matsutake
Winter Chanterelle
Winter Oyster

Clavariadelphus truncatus -- Flat-Topped Coral Mushroom

Spent several hours today walking in a couple of different woods after two weeks full of long days at work that did not allow me to get out. I walked a long way and saw thousands of mushrooms, but for the first two hours, none of them edible.

I finally found and brought home some Chanterells (several white, two golden) and two Boletus mirabilis, the Admirable Bolete. I had seen Mike Orr's video of the Admirable and although I had not remembered seeing any before, low and behold, today, I saw three of them! Only two worth bringing home, but the one I left in the woods (past it's prime) was the largest.

I also saw great quantities of Clavariadelphus truncatus, in both locations. It is a fungus I had not seen before, and so left in the field. I took two pictures with my iPhone and identified it when I got home:

Turns out I should have gathered some. "This is a fine edible wild mushroom -- often firm, always tasteful, and certainly unusual...Saute it or bread and deep-fry it for an unusual side dish." raves Fisher and Bessette in Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America.