Category Archives: Fungi and Lichens

Wood Blewit (Clitocybe nuda)

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Wood Blewit

Wood Blewit (Clitocybe nuda) is very common and widespread. It is popular with mushroom foragers because it is plentiful and edible. It is found on the ground, often found in rings or arcs, in woodlands, gardens, and compost piles. It appears mostly in the cool months from September to December but may appear in spring and summer.

This species is identified by growing on the ground in woods; its large size; thick stalk; purplish cap, stem and gills fading to brown with age; and pale spore print.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/Wood_Blewit.html

Eastern Flat-topped Agaricus (Agaricus placomyces)

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Eastern Flat-topped Agaricus

Eastern Flat-topped Agaricus (Agaricus placomyces), a widespread but not common mushroom, is easily recognized by it’s flat cap with blackish-brown fibers and scales. It is found from July to October on the ground, either singly or in groups or clusters, under hardwood trees in deciduous and mixed forests. It obtains its nutrients from decaying organic matter. It appears in the summer and fall. It is poisonous, not edible.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/Eastern_Flat-topped_Agaricus.html

Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus)

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Oyster Mushroom

Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) is a large, common, widespread, and widely known bracket (shelf-like) fungus. This mushroom is found usually on hardwoods, especially elm, cottonwood, alder, and oak. It is rarely found on conifers. It usually appears as overlapping shelves on a log or stump, sometimes on a live tree. It enters the tree through a wound and infects the wood causing white rot. It first appears in the fall after a heavy rain.

There are many mushrooms with a similar growth habit and appearance. This species is identified by growing on wood in shelf-like clusters; large size; absent or rudimentary stem; whitish or pale lilac spore print; host species; and late (fall) appearance.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/Oyster_Mushroom.html

 

Common Greenshield Lichen (Flavoparmelia caperata)

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Common Greenshield Lichen

Common Greenshield Lichen (Flavoparmelia caperata) is a widespread and extremely common lichen. It is found firmly attached to the bark of broadleaved trees, fenceposts, and occasionally to rocks. It appears as a yellowish-green disk, 2″ to 8″ in diameter, divided into numerous irregular lobes.

Unlike most lichens, Greenshield lichens (Flavoparmelia spp.) are relatively tolerant of air pollution. They are among the first noticeable lichens to return to areas that have been rid of lichens due to pollution.

The Greenshield lichens are similar in appearance. Common Greenshield Lichen is identified by its substrate, which is usually tree bark or a fence post; and by the upper surface, which does not have white pores or pustule-like growths.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/Common_Greenshield_Lichen.html

Indigo Milk Cap (Lactarius indigo)

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Indigo Milk Cap

Indigo Milk Cap (Lactarius indigo) is a widespread but uncommon, distinctively colored mushroom. In the summer and fall it can be found on the ground alone, scattered, or in groups, in oak and pine woodlands. It grows on the roots of hardwoods, including oak, ironwood, and blue beech; and pines.

The cap is blue when young, often with concentric rings of darker blue. As it ages the color fades to silvery-blue and it may develop greenish stains. The flesh instantly turns blue when cut and it slowly bleeds blue latex. The flesh and latex eventually turn green with exposure to air.

No other milk cap mushroom “bleeds blue”. This species is further identified by the blue gills.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/Indigo_Milk_Cap.html

False Tinder Fungus (Phellinus igniarius)

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False Tinder Fungus

False Tinder Fungus (Phellinus igniarius) is the most common cause of White Trunk Rot in North America. It infects 21 genera of hardwood trees but is found most often on birch. It turns the wood of infected trees into a soft, white, spongy mass. The fruiting body is a woody, bracket-shaped conk with pores on the underside. It is usually found on the trunk of a living tree.

This species is identified by the host (hardwoods); the black, often cracked upper surface of older specimens; the dark brown or rusty brown flesh; the brown underside; the layered pores; and the white lines running through the flesh, visible in cross section.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/False_Tinder_Fungus.html

Wrinkled Peach (Rhodotus palmatus)

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Wrinkled Peach

Wrinkled Peach (Rhodotus palmatus) is a small to medium-sized, easily recognized but infrequently found gill mushroom. It is found scattered or in small groups on fallen, rotting hardwoods, especially on elm but occasionally also on basswood and maple. Before the middle of the twentieth century this mushroom was rare in North America. With the advance of Dutch elm disease the number of dead elms has greatly increased as has the population of this mushroom. There are no similar species. The lightly-colored netted surface is distinctive.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/Wrinkled_Peach.html

Purple-spored Puffball (Calvatia cyathiformis)

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Purple-spored Puffball

Photo by James Folden

Purple-spored Puffball (Calvatia cyathiformis) is a large mushroom found from July to November in prairies, pastures, lawns, and other open grassy areas. It grows on the ground and obtains its nutrients from decaying organic matter. It is widespread and occasional to locally common in eastern North America and the Great Plains. In the summer it appears as a white, rounded or pear-shaped puffball and is difficult to distinguish from several similar species. In the fall it turns dull purple, eventually rupturing to reveal a distinctive purple spore mass. It is edible in the summer when the flesh is white and solid.

The thin skin and mushy (while darkening) spore mass distinguish puffballs, which are edible, from earthballs, some of which are poisonous. The purple spores distinguish this species from all other puffballs in found in Minnesota.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/Purple-spored_Puffball.html

Yellow Morel (Morchella esculenta)

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Yellow Morel

Photo by Bill Reynolds

Yellow Morel (Morchella esculenta) may be the most widely recognized mushroom in eastern North America. It is found in a wide variety of habitats and may appear alone, scattered, or clustered. In Minnesota they appear mostly in May but may also pop up later in the growing season.

Morel hunters are traditionally known to misinform those who ask where to find the mushrooms. Look for them emerging through leaf litter in hardwood forests at the base of hardwood trees, especially dead or dying elm trees.

http://www.minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/Yellow_Morel.html

Scarlet Cup (Sarcoscypha austriaca)

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Scarlet Cup (Sarcoscypha austriaca)

Scarlet Cup (Sarcoscypha austriaca) is a common and widespread mushroom in eastern hardwood forests. It is one of the first splashes of color to be seen in the woods in early spring. It grows on buried or fallen twigs and branches of willow, maple, locust, and speckled alder. It is part of a species complex that includes Sarcoscypha austriaca, Sarcoscypha coccinea, and Sarcoscypha dudleyi. The three species are indistinguishable except by microscopic examination of the spores and the hairs on the underside of the cup. However, only two of the species, S. austriaca and S. dudleyi, are found in Minnesota.

Scarlet Cup (Sarcoscypha austriaca)

Photo by Mike Bezdicek

http://www.minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/Scarlet_Cup.html