Central Pennsylvania Mushroom Club

First, there are lots of mushrooms fruiting here in Huntingdon County after an extended period of rain. This is a great time to get out and see the diversity of the mushroom world. I have to admit that I enjoy finding a humongus fungus as much as the next guy. But I also thrill in finding the smaller fungi. Finding the little guys affirms that I am being observant of the natural world around me. And I always figure that if you are seeing the little mushrooms there is a lesser chance that some larger, more prized mushroom will be missed.

I hunted morels with some determination this spring and did manage to find some. I prefer to hunt close to home, so I checked out a combination of spots where I had found morels previously and a few nearby parcels of promising-looking habitat that I scouted out last winter. Fortunately I enjoy being out in the woods, otherwise I would have to rank the amount of effort per morel found as prohibitively high. Most of the woods nearby are predominantly oak, and oak forest just doesn't seem to make very good morel habitat. Attached is one of my favorite morel photos from this spring.

Following the mass fruiting of the Pheasant Wings, I recently came across another fruiting larger than any I had previously encountered. I was hunting morels at the time, but unfortunately it wasn't morels. I was checking out a stand of tulip poplars that I discovered last winter and decided to take a quick look under some large white oaks growing nearby. There I found a fairly common early spring mushroom, the Devil's Urn or Urnula craterium. Photos of this intriguing mushroom have appeared on our blog pages previously and I had found a small number of them earlier in the spring.

Morel finds here in Huntingdon County seemed to dry up along with the rain for the past week or so. But the recent rain produced the first small but fresh yellow morel of the season for me yesterday. Time to renew the search. While waiting for the rain, I have been doing some trout fishing and came across a rather striking fruiting of the Pheasant Wing or Dryad Saddle mushroom, Polyporus squamosus. See attached photo. This is a fairly common spring find, usually found on logs, stumps, or standing dead wood. This cluster was growing on a half-dead tree.

As per my last post, I found a couple black morels last Friday. That was four days after tax day, when Bob had told me he usually begins to look in earnest. We had a nice shower after I got home but it was spawned by an approaching cold front. I pondered if the added moisture would induce further fruiting, or if the cooler temperatures would inhibit further fruiting. As I suspected, several nights at or near freezing seemed to inhibit further mushroom production. I checked my patches on Monday and found nothing. Things have warmed a bit since then so I checked again today (Wednesday).

Today I checked what I have found to be a fairly reliable spot for black morels near my home in Huntingdon County. I found two small morels just poking through the leaves. That's not much, but I have been monitoring the spot for a couple of weeks now and today was the first, welcome sign that the morels are on the way. I found morels in the same spot last year during the final days of March, about three weeks earlier than this year.

After a nearly snow-free year last year, I have really been enjoying tramping around the woods in the snow. I'm no expert, but I learned enough about tracking as a kid to be able to decipher some of the stories left behind by wildlife as the animals travel through the snow. A deer's bed here, a bit of snow excavated there by a squirrel digging for some acorn buried away last fall. And I never fail to marvel at how the wild creatures survive the cold of winter, now with heavy snow cover on the ground for well over a week. Of course, I am also frequently thinking about mushrooms.

What a difference a couple of weeks and a few good rains can make. The recent club meeting walk at Trough Creek State Park didn't turn up a lot of mushrooms, as it had been quite dry for several weeks prior to the event. Since then we've had several good rains here in Huntingdon County and the mushrooms are definitely fruiting. I have been finding several fall favorites at a number of locations. I have been taking some pictures of course, but can't get them uploaded to the web site right now. I'll try to determine why and post some photos shortly.

 

The third annual CPMC foray has come and gone and it seems all who attended agree it was another most excellent event.  The weather was pleasant, the food was great, the companionship was delightful, the experts were generous in sharing their knowledge and experience, and the mushrooms were plentiful.  Who could ask for more?  In addition to the beautiful new club sign produced by Allen, here are a few highlights of the event. 

As recently noted, the heavy rains the past week have produced a scattered growth of summer mushromms.  Just a few days ago I found several small patches of the highly regarded Black Trumpet.  Today I found a couple of deadly Amanita virosa growing under oaks in my side yard, a location in which I have found them each of the past several years.  This mushroom should be known by all and consumed by none.  Follow the links below for a bit of additional information and consult the field guides.