I expected this fall’s crop of mushrooms would be different from last season’s given our highly changeable conditions these days.
Fungi, slime molds and lichens can tell when conditions are right to produce fruiting bodies and disperse spores. That window of opportunity appeared to come quite early in spring and summer this year. But interesting examples are still popping up. If I manage to capture worthy portraits of their splendid forms, I will add them below.
Once again it has been an unusually rainy spring and summer with mushrooms in mossy spots in the woods as well as in our yards and even cracks in sidewalks.
Now that I have been paying more careful attention for a couple of years, I am finding examples that you might not normally think of as mushrooms, as well as slime molds with their fruiting bodies deposited where the wind can help with propagation.
Wasn’t it a bit early for mushrooms? I had never seen such a fuzzy yellow growth. Perhaps it was something else. When I posted a photo online, I learned it might be a young dyer’s polypore. Evidently, the timing of all kinds of things is more variable these days.
I found two. They both started out as fuzzy yellow lumps and kept changing. Dyer’s polypore seemed correct as there were certainly pores rather than the usual gills on the undersides.
I learned dyer’s polypores can be used to stain fibers a number of different colors – yellows, various shades of browns and even greens – depending on the type of fiber and how it is pretreated. This video shows it being used to dye wool lovely shades of yellow.
The first two photos below show the two I found mid-way through their cycle and the remaining photos show the changes that each went through closer in.
Last summer it rained nearly every day followed by a rather spectacular crop of mushrooms popping up in Menotomy Rocks Park.
This year the rains have started again after a prolonged draught. I came across yellow and orange Chicken of the woods brackets where I found them last year. And there were a few other interesting fungi, mostly in shades of white, tan and brown. As the season is not yet over, I will add additional examples below.
I am told that besides tasting rather like lemony chicken with a great deal of protein, chicken of the woods also has many health benefits. Although hard to miss and relatively easy to identify, as with all mushrooms growing in the wild, it is best to seek expert guidance on which are safe to eat and to prepare them carefully. And it is possible for certain people to be allergic to chicken of the woods and other mushrooms, so care is needed when eating them for the first time.
With so little rain last summer, I did not expect an abundance of amazing mushrooms like last fall in Menotomy Rocks Park. But, I came across this colorful cluster the day before it was taken by eager foragers.
The series below follows the central protrusion as it evolved before someone cut parts of it and what remained dried out.
Recently, I came across two people carrying a basket of hen of the woods and a bag full of honey mushrooms. While the number of edible mushrooms each person can gather is limited in Europe, no such limit applies In the United States and these two had gathered so many, they told me they would need to give some away. While books and online resources like this one can be useful, the best way to learn which fungi are safe to eat is to go out with a local expert. 
Their value has long been recognized including in works of art. The jade pendant shown in the last photo below bears witness to the reverence accorded to fungi by the Chinese, who use them in their traditional medicine.  The Maya carved fascinating mushroom stones, and fungi with psychotropic properties have important cultural significance for certain tribes. 
Scientists have verified that fungi can support the health of forests and survive fire. They have been used to control insect pests and to clean up plastic and organic waste. No doubt we will discover more about their many benefits and possible uses for fungi as we learn more about them.
Nature is constantly shifting and not just with the normal seasonal changes these days. This early fall, I would certainly welcome some quiet green time on my morning walks in Menotomy Rocks Park (Arlington, Massachusetts, USA), but nature had its own ideas. After abundant rain all summer, amazing fungi were popping up everywhere and calling out to have their portraits taken. In the last photo below, the lighting was perfect to capture falling spores.
For those interested in learning more, Merlin Sheldrake’s, Entangled Life; How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures seems destined to become a modern classic with its vivid descriptions and wonderful stories. His ability to convey his appreciation of the finely tuned relationships in the network of life seems highly relevant in our times when that understanding is so badly needed.
Radiant Refuge 