Life on Toast #378

 

Witches butter

Witches butter on a log in Redwood Regional Park looking a lot like melted macaroni & cheese.

Witches butter is odd. It is a blobular yellow fungus found on every continent except Antarctica. Thin and unnoticed during dry times, with the application of water it achieves the look of a slimy, golden brain. It is near impossible to draw something so gelatinous.

Recent fungal finds

These are everywhere in my yard this year. Hard to say if they are natives to the yard, or sprung from the organic soil I brought in to fluff up the beds. Most likely, Russula rosacea. Not edible.

Here in Northern CA, January is often the wettest time of the year. The ground is green with new growth and fungus pops up underfoot. I have been taking photos mostly. I tell myself I will draw them - and I might yet. I pull my two favorite shroom books off of the shelf (All the Rain Promises and More by David Arora, and Mushrooms of North America by Roger Phillips.)

I do not forage for mushrooms, or eat any of the wild ones I find. Mostly because my mycology professor at MSU had way too many horror stories about pumped stomachs, horrible symptoms and painful agonizing deaths. I am capable of taking spore prints and identifying down to species. I'm usually too lazy. Especially when it is so much easier to go to the grocery store, or the mushroom booth at the farmer's market and get the kind I know are edible. 

Mushroom growth

I found this fungus growing on top of the Eucalyptus stump behind my house. The growth pattern reminds me of the Chicken of the Woods mushrooms in the Laetiporus genus. However, it has none of the bright sulfur yellow color that is a major characteristic of that edible fungus.

The spores are white to cream (changing as they get older?). The only Laetiporus I can find with white spores *does* grow on Eucalyptus, but is still much more yellow in color (see photos here).

I will be doing a little dissection and adding to this post. Stay tuned!