Cerrena unicolor

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Cerrena_unicolor.html

Ecology: Saprobic on the deadwood of hardwoods (very rarely reported on conifers); causing a white rot; annual; growing in overlapping clusters; found year-round; widely distributed in North America but rare or absent in the Southwest.

Fruiting Body: Sometimes lacking a cap (especially when growing on the undersides of logs), appearing like a pore surface that lost its mushroom, but more commonly with a kidney-shaped to fan-shaped cap 3-10 cm across; upper surface velvety to hairy, whitish to brownish but often appearing green from algae; usually with concentric zones of texture and/or color.

Pore Surface: Whitish when young, becoming gray; pores maze-like or slot-like, becoming tooth-like with age; tubes to 4 mm deep.

Flesh: Whitish; with a dark line just beneath the cap surface; leathery.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 5-7 x 2.5-4 ; smooth; long-elliptical; inamyloid; hyaline in KOH. Hyphal system trimitic.

Lycoperdon curtisii

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Lycoperdon_curtisii.html

Ecology: Saprobic; usually growing in tight clusters; found in grass, often in disturbed-ground areas like ditches—but also sometimes appearing on woodchips in landscaping areas; late summer and fall; widely distributed in North America. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois.

Fruiting Body: Shaped like a small ball, 1-3 cm across, but frequently contorted as a result of clustered growth; densely spiny when young; spines 1-2 mm long, often joined at their tips, easily rubbing off; in maturity often fairly smooth, with a powdery coating; white becoming pale brownish; developing a small hole at the top, through which spore dust escapes; appearing pinched together at the bottom; with a white, fleshy interior at first; later with yellowish to olive granular flesh and eventually filled with brownish or purplish brown spore dust; base attached to white rhizoids.

Microscopic Features: Spores 2-3 m; globose; minutely echinulate; hyaline in KOH; occasionally featuring a 1-2 m pedical. Capillitial threads 3-5 &#181m; wide; branching; mostly thin-walled and hyaline in KOH.

Suillus cothurnatus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Suillus_cothurnatus.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with loblolly pine and longleaf pine (possibly also slash pine); growing alone, scattered, or gregariously; late summer and fall, or over winter in warmer climates; originally described from Florida (Singer 1945); widely distributed where the host trees occur naturally (from Mexico through Texas to Florida and New Jersey) and in plantations outside of this range; also reported from the Caribbean, Central America, and South America—as well as South Africa and Australia. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois and Georgia.

Cap: 2-6 cm; convex at first, becoming broadly convex; slimy when fresh, but often dry and glossy at maturity; bald, or very finely appressed-fibrillose and appearing streaked under the gluten; dull brownish orange to orangish yellow, with brownish streaks, becoming brownish to yellowish with maturity; the margin at first inrolled.

Pore Surface: At first covered with a thick, whitish to orangish partial veil that is baggy and rubbery, with a white roll of tissue on the lower edge; orangish at first, maturing to yellowish or brownish; not bruising; 1-3 angular pores per mm; not boletinoid; tubes to about 1 cm deep.

Stem: 3-6 cm long; 0.5-1 cm thick; tapered to base; tough; covered with glandular dots that are brownish red at first but become brown to black with age; whitish to yellowish or orangish; with a thick, sheathing, gelatinous, whitish to orangish ring that often features a whitish roll of tissue at the bottom and, in age, collapses to form a grayish, bracelet-like band; basal mycelium whitish to pastel orange.

Flesh: Yellowish to orangish or orange in cap; darker orange in the stem; deep salmon orange in the stem base; often mottled; not staining on exposure.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: Ammonia negative to faintly purplish on cap surface; pinkish to purplish on flesh. KOH purple to gray on cap surface; purple to bluish on flesh. Iron salts negative on cap surface; negative to faintly greenish on flesh.

Spore Print: Cinnamon brown.

Microscopic Features: Spores 7-10 x 2-3 m; boletoid-fusiform; smooth; yellowish in KOH. Basidia 22-28 x 4-6 m; clavate; 4-sterigmate. Cystidia in gelatinized bundles, often poorly defined individually; 35-50 x 5-8; cylindric to subclavate; thin-walled; smooth; dark brown in KOH. Pileipellis an ixolattice of poorly defined elements 2.5-5 m wide, smooth, hyaline in KOH.

Lactarius peckii

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Lactarius_peckii.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with oaks and other hardwoods; growing alone or gregariously; summer and fall; fairly widely distributed in eastern North America, but more common in the Appalachian Mountains. The illustrated and described collections are from Kentucky and Ohio.

Cap: 4-9 cm; convex with a slightly inrolled margin when young; becoming centrally depressed, with an uplifted margin; dry; bald or very finely velvety; brick red to dark orangish red or ruddy orange; with or without faint to moderate concentric zones of color.

Gills: Beginning to run down the stem; close or crowded; short-gills frequent; pale orange when young, darkening to brownish orange or brownish (eventually brown) with maturity; not staining where damaged.

Stem: 2.5-4 cm long; 1-2 cm thick; more or less equal; bald; without potholes; dry; pale, dull orange or darker orange.

Flesh: Orangish; fairly firm; unchanging when sliced.

Milk: Copious; white; not staining surfaces, but drying very slowly yellowish to greenish; staining white paper yellow overnight.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste quickly burning-acrid.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative to yellowish on cap surface.

Spore Print: Reported as white by Hesler & Smith (1979).

Microscopic Features: Spores 5-6.5 x 5-6 m; globose or subglobose; ornamentation consisting of amyloid warts and ridges extending 0.5-1 m high, forming wide-meshed, partially reticulated areas. Hymenial macrocystidia 35-45 x 5-7.5 m; long-fusiform; sometimes with an apical constriction; thin-walled; smooth. Pileipellis a cutis; orangish golden in KOH; elements cylindric, 2.5-5 m wide, smooth.

Lactarius rubriviridis

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Lactarius_rubriviridis.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with conifers; summer and fall; northern California and central Oregon.

Fruiting Body: 2-6 cm; egg-shaped, ellipsoid, or nearly round; outer surface pitted and ridged, reddish brown, bruising and discoloring greenish to green; interior chambered and pocketed, with white flesh that stains red when sliced; usually with a central column-like structure (the illustrated collection is apparently aberrant, with its large central fleshy area).

Milk: Scant; red.

Odor and Taste: Odor sweet or not distinctive; taste mild.

Spore Print: Creamy or orangish.

Microscopic Features: Spores 8.5-11 x 7.5-8.5 ; broadly ellipsoid; ornamentation with prominences 0.5-1 high; connecting lines forming well developed reticula.

Thelephora cuticularis

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Thelephora_cuticularis.html

Ecology: Ecological role uncertain; most species of Thelephora are assumed to be mycorrhizal, but Thelephora cuticularis grows from wood and woody debris and may therefore be saprobic; scattered to gregarious or in shelving groups; associated with oaks and other hardwoods, often appearing on mossy bark; widely distributed in North America east of the Great Plains, and documented in Arizona. The illustrated and described collection is from Wisconsin.

Fruiting Body: A cap-like structure attached laterally to the substrate without a true stem—or sometimes merely effused-reflexed (a folded-over, cap-like edge above a fertile surface that lies flush with the substrate).

Cap: 1-3 cm across; 1-2 cm deep; irregularly fan-shaped to semicircular; becoming radially wrinkled; dry; bald or fibrillose; dark brown to nearly black overall, with a soft, white margin.

Undersurface: Smooth; dark brown to blackish, with a hint of purple.

Flesh: Tough; 2-3 mm thick; brown to black.

Odor: Not distinctive.

Spore Print: Not documented; probably brown.

Microscopic Features: Spores 8-10 x 5-8 m (excluding ornamentation); irregular and angular; covered with spines that extend about 0.5 m; brownish in KOH. Basidia 4-sterigmate; to about 65 x 12.5 m. Subhymenium bluing in KOH. Tramal hyphae cylindric; 4-6 m wide; thick-walled, smooth, and brownish to brown in KOH; without clamps at septa.

Stereum hirsutum

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Stereum_hirsutum.html

Ecology: Saprobic on the dead wood of hardwoods, especially oaks; growing densely gregariously, often from gaps in the bark, fusing together laterally; causing a white rot of the heartwood; often serving as a host to algae; sometimes parasitized by jelly fungi; spring, summer, fall, and winter; widely distributed in North America.

Fruiting Body: Individually .5-3 cm across, but often fused together; fan-shaped, semicircular, or irregular; densely velvety, hairy, or with appressed hairs; with concentric zones of texture and color; colors variable, but generally ranging from yellow to tan, brown, reddish brown, or buff (sometimes developing greenish shades in old age as a result of algae); laterally attached, without a stem.

Undersurface: Smooth; yellowish to yellow-brown or grayish brown; sometimes bruising darker yellow.

Flesh: Insubstantial; tough.

Chemical Reactions: KOH red (or at first red, then black) on all surfaces.

Spore Print: White; difficult to obtain.

Microscopic Features: Spores 5-8 x 2-3.5 ; smooth; cylindric or narrowly elliptical; amyloid. Hyphidia with rounded to subacute apices; without projections (pseudoacanthohyphidia and acanthohyphidia absent).

Amanita novinupta

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Amanita_novinupta.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with hardwoods, especially coast live oak--but also associated with Douglas-fir and other conifers; growing alone, scattered, or gregariously; fall, winter, and spring; California to British Columbia, and in Arizona and New Mexico.

Cap: 3-15 cm; round, becoming convex or nearly flat; dry; the surface appearing dusted or chalky at first, but later becoming shiny or satiny; white at first, developing pink shades that can seem to originate from beneath the translucent surface; eventually pinkish to tan; bruising and discoloring pale pinkish or darker reddish brown; universal veil taking the form of whitish to pale pink warts or one to several patches; the margin not lined, sometimes hung with a few veil remnants.

Gills: Free from the stem or slightly attached to it; whitish; close or crowded; bruising pinkish.

Stem: 2-15 cm long; 1-3 cm thick; slightly tapering to apex; usually with a prominent basal bulb; more or less smooth, or finely scaly; white; bruising pinkish to reddish; with a white, skirtlike ring; occasionally with a few universal veil remnants near the base, but without a prominent volva; solid or partially hollow in age.

Flesh: White throughout; staining pinkish to reddish on exposure.

Odor: Not distinctive.</AP>

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative on cap surface.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 8-11 x 5.5 - 7 ; smooth; ellipsoid; amyloid. Basidia 4-spored; sometimes clamped. Pileipellis an ixocutis of elements 2-8 wide. Lamellar trama bilateral; subhymenium inflated-ramose.

Amanita magnivelaris

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Amanita_magnivelaris.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with various hosts--I have collected it under loblolly pine and under Norway spruce; Rod Tulloss (http://www.amanitaceae.org/?amanita%20magnivelaris" TARGET="new upd.) documents it under various hardwoods and conifers; growing alone or scattered; summer and fall; apparently distributed around the Great Lakes and in the northeast.

Cap: 4-10 cm; convex, becoming broadly convex, broadly bell-shaped, or nearly flat in age; bald or, when young, with scattered volval patches; dry or sticky; white to ivory; the margin not lined.

Gills: Free, or nearly free, from the stem; close or crowded; with frequent short-gills; white.

Stem: 6-12 cm long; 1-2 cm thick; tapering to apex; with an enlarged, bulbous base that measures up to 4 cm in diameter and features a tapering, rooted underside; somewhat shaggy or nearly bald; white; with a persistent, notably thickened, felty, high, skirtlike ring that may feature a grooved upper surface; with a white, sacklike volva encasing the base.

Flesh: White throughout.

Odor: Reminiscent of raw potatoes, or not distinctive.

Spore Print: White.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative on cap surface.

Microscopic Features: Spores 8-11 x 5.5-8 ; smooth; ellipsoid; amyloid. Basidia without clamps; 4-spored. Pileipellis a cutis or ixocutis. Lamellar trama bilateral.

Chroogomphus ochraceus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Chroogomphus_ochraceus.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with conifers, especially pines; growing alone, scattered, or loosely gregariously; summer and fall (over winter in coastal California); widely distributed in North America.

Cap: 2-12 cm wide; convex, occasionally with a central point; smooth; slimy when fresh and young, but often dry and shiny or silky when collected; color ranging from yellowish to orangish, reddish, purplish red, or reddish brown--usually darker with maturity.

Gills: Running down the stem; distant or nearly so; pale yellowish at first, becoming grayish cinnamon and finally blackish as the spores mature.

Stem: 3.5-18 cm long; up to 2.5 cm wide; tapering to base; yellowish to pale orangish; sometimes with scattered orangish to reddish fibers (but not densely felty-scaly); often with a wispy ring zone from the collapsed partial veil.

Flesh: Pinkish above, yellowish in the stem.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Spore Print: Dark gray to black.

Microscopic Features: Spores 14-22 x 6-7.5 ; smooth; narrowly elliptical to subfusoid. Cystidia long-cylindrical, subutriform, or narrowly clavate; up to about 180 x 20 ; with thin walls (under about 1 thick).

Phallus rugulosus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Phallus_rugulosus.html

Ecology: Saprobic; growing alone or gregariously in urban locations, including gardens, landscaping mulch, woodchip beds, lawns, and cultivated areas; spring through fall in temperate climates, but potentially year round in tropical and subtropical areas; fairly common in North America from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic states; also recorded from South America, Hawaii and Asia (originally described from Japan). The described and illustrated collections are from Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, and New York.

Immature Fruiting Body: Like a whitish to slightly purplish "egg" 2-3.5 cm high and 1.5-2 cm wide; egg-shaped or nearly round; base attached to thin whitish rhizomorphs; when sliced revealing the orangish stinkhorn-to-be encased in a brownish gelatinous substance.

Mature Fruiting Body: Cylindric, with a clearly differentiated head structure that is separate from the stem but may collapse against the stem surface with age.

Head: 1.5-2.5 cm high; attached to the top of the stem; conic or nearly so; often becoming perforated at the apex; smooth or granular and wrinkled; red when fresh, fading to orange; initially covered by dark brown spore slime; sometimes with a few patches of universal veil.

Stem: 8-12 cm high; 1-1.5 cm thick; cylindric or slightly tapered to apex; dry; very rarely white throughout development, but usually reddish orange when fresh, fading from the base up to pale pinkish orange; pocketed; hollow; base enclosed in a white to purplish or brownish volva 1-2 cm high and 2-3 cm wide; attached to white rhizomorphs.

Microscopic Features: Spores 4-5 x 1.5-2 m; elongated-ellipsoid to cylindric; smooth; hyaline in KOH. Sphaerocysts of the pseudostipe 19-56 m; irregularly subglobose; smooth; walls 1-1.5 m thick; hyaline in KOH. Hyphae of the volva 2.5-7.5 m wide; smooth; hyaline in KOH; conspicuously clamped at septa.

Nice find today in the Dacrymycetaceae family, but uncertain about the exact species.
#mycology

Russula puellaris

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Russula_puellaris.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal; found under hardwoods or conifers (especially spruces), often in moss; growing alone or scattered; summer and fall; apparently widely distributed in North America.

Cap: 2-6 cm; convex when young, becoming broadly convex to flat, sometimes with a shallow depression and an arched margin; sticky when wet; fairly smooth; purple to rose purple with an almost blackish center at first, becoming pinkish to reddish and eventually brown as the underlying flesh yellows; the margin widely and strongly lined; the skin peeling easily, often more than halfway to the center.

Gills: Attached to the stem; close or nearly distant; creamy, becoming yellow with maturity.

Stem: 2.5-7 cm long; .5-1.5 cm thick; white at first, but eventually discoloring dull yellow over the entire surface; dry, but with a water-soaked appearance; fairly smooth; hollowing.

Flesh: Thin; white, becoming dull yellow.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste mild.

Spore Print: Pale yellow.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface yellowish to orangish; iron salts on stem surface negative to pinkish.

Microscopic Features: Spores 6.5-9 x 5.5-7 (but reported by Roberts [2008] as 8-11 x 7-9 in the Pacific Northwest); with mostly isolated warts extending <NOBR>.5-1.2 </NOBR> high; connectors scattered, not usually creating reticulated areas--but occasionally forming broken reticula. Pileipellis a cutis embedded in a gelatinous matrix; pileocystidia abundant, subclavate to clavate, to about 150 x 10 , with 1-4 septa, ochraceous-refractive in KOH and positive in sulphovanillin; mature specimens with areas of golden yellow hyphal ends and pileocystidia.

Gliophorus laetus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Gliophorus_laetus.html

Ecology: Precise ecological role uncertain (see Lodge et al. 2013); growing scattered to gregariously in woods (especially in boggy, wet areas) or, in Europe, in grasslands and heaths; summer and fall, or over winter in warmer climates. Originally described from France; common in Europe; widely distributed in North America; also known from Central America. The illustrated and described collections are from Michigan and Ohio.

Cap: 1.5-3.5 cm across; convex at first, expanding to broadly convex or nearly flat, with a shallow central depression; bald; slimy; medium brownish orange over the center, but paler pinkish orange elsewhere; the margin becoming translucently lined with age.

Gills: Running down the stem, or beginning to do so; distant; edges with a thin gelatinous band; creamy; short-gills present.

Stem: 3-4 cm long; 2-3 mm thick; equal; bald; slimy; pale orange; hollow.

Flesh: Insubstantial; whitish.

Odor and Taste: Odd and fishy or soaplike&mdash;or not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: KOH pink on cap surface.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 6-9 x 3.5-4.5 m; ellipsoid to sublacrymoid; smooth; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Basidia 35-40 x 3-5 m; cylindric to subclavate; 4-sterigmate. Pleurocystidia not found. Ixocheilocystidia forming a sterile band; 30-50 x 1-2 m; filamentous; apices rounded or subacute; smooth; hyaline in KOH; partially gelatinizing. Pileipellis an ixocutis; elements 2.5-5 m wide, smooth, hyaline in KOH.

Strange encounter

Suggestions for an identification are welcome.

Gyromitra caroliniana

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Gyromitra_caroliniana.html

Ecology: Officially saprobic, but potentially also mycorrhizal--or, like the true morels, donning both ecological hats in the course of its life cycle; found under hardwoods--usually near rotting stumps and downed trees; spring; widely distributed in eastern North America from Kansas to the East Coast, but especially common in the south and in the Mississippi and Ohio watersheds (the northern edge of its range appears to be the southern Great Lakes).

Cap: 5-11 cm high; 6-12 cm wide; variable in shape but usually more or less round; not lobed; tightly affixed; tightly wrinkled; bald; reddish brown; undersurface not exposed, whitish to grayish, bald or finely dusted, ingrown with stem.

Flesh: Whitish to grayish; brittle; chambered.

Stem: 4-10 cm long; 2-10 cm wide; white; becoming ribbed with vertical ribs up to 1 cm across; bald or very finely dusted; sometimes discoloring grayish on handling.

Microscopic Features: Spores 22-35 x 10-16 ; with 1 large oil droplet and 2-3 smaller ones; ellipsoid; smooth at first, and often remaining so well into maturity--or, in maturity, developing ornamentation as ridges and projections that can extend 1-2 from the surface of the spore, or 2-5 at the ends of the spore, where projections appear as 1-5 apiculi; the ornamentation eventually sheathing the spore completely. Asci 8-spored. Paraphyses clavate to subcapitate; 5-7 wide; septate several times; orangish to reddish.

Clavariadelphus lignicola

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Clavariadelphus_lignicola.html

Ecology: Probably saprobic; associated with Engelmann Spruce; growing gregariously in large troops, sometimes in clusters--or merely scattered; currently recorded only from spruce-fir elevations in the Four Corners region (however, the range of Engelmann Spruce extends to the Pacific Northwest, and specimens from this area may have been labeled Clavariadelphus ligula); late summer and fall.

Fruiting Body: 1-3 cm high; about .5 cm wide; narrowly club shaped; surface finely dusted or more or less smooth, becoming wrinkled with age; at first pale yellowish or cream colored, darkening somewhat with age; not bruising; the base attached to copious white mycelium that binds needle duff or woody debris and is often aggregated into tiny whitish strands; flesh whitish, soft.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: Surface negative in KOH; greenish with iron salts.

Spore Print: Pale (precise color not recorded--by me or in the literature).

Microscopic Features: Spores 16-21 x 5-7 ; long-elliptical (reminiscent of bolete spores); smooth.