More mushrooms.

Lewisburg.

For the time of year that's supposed to signal the trailing end of mushroom season around here, I'm certainly finding a lot more than I'd expect. And it isn't as though I'm looking very hard, or even going out of my way.

Basically, if it's not on my route to pick up a newspaper, I'm not going to find it.



Thursday's find: the American slippery jack, Suillus americanus. I'd stumbled across a patch of them in the button stage, just barely visible against the grass around them. I picked the two in the photograph, so I could identify them when I got home, and figured I'd go back for the rest when they'd had a chance to mature. Wishful thinking.

When I went back, they were gone. Not harvested - though it is an edible species - but just kicked all over the place. Apparently the yellow caps were just too tempting a target, and too close to the sidewalk. Must have seemed like a good place to toss a banana peel and some candy wrappers, too. At least I managed to find a budding little turkey tail, Trametes versicolor, so I can go back and check it out in the future. It's not hard to find from the sidewalk, either, but the stump it's growing on makes it a decidedly less tempting target.



Today's find: the shaggy mane, Coprinus comatus. It's an ugly mushroom, with its scaly cap dissolving into black gunk. But, I hear, a rather choice one for the table - assuming you catch it before it "deliquesces" into a decidedly unappealing goo. I didn't find enough to bother cooking up, but I don't expect to have difficulty finding more of these in the future.

The problem with these particular two mushrooms - and any I might find while out walking the streets of Lewisburg - is that shaggy manes have a tendency to take up whatever toxins may be in the soil. While not an issue in an untreated lawn, or out in the woods, I'm wary of any lawns that aren't mine. (Especially the one down the street that's far too lush and green for November in Pennsylvania.) And anything near a road with significant traffic means there's the potential for heavy metal uptake due to car exhaust and tire abrasion, among other things.

So that wild mushroom meal will probably have to wait until spring. It is, after all, National Novel Writing Month once more, which means that any walks in the woods will have to wait until at least December.

Or later, since that'll be prime wear-bright-orange-or-get-shot season around here. Maybe I'll just hold off until morel season.