100 Species #90: Purple-spored or skull-shaped puffball

[urbpan]

This purple-spored (Calvatia cyathiformis) or skull-shaped (C. craniformis) puffball grew in the grass next to the driveway; this photo is from August 31.

If I'd let this mushroom grow to maturity, to let the interior turn into a mass of billions of spores, then the color of those spores would let me know what species it is. But I didn't, because I ate it. To eat a puffball you have to harvest it when the flesh inside is pure white--if it isn't pure white, or if it shows a structure of any kind inside, the mushroom is not edible, and may well be deadly poisonous. But this mushroom looked like dense pure white angel food cake, and once cooked, tasted like mushroomy French toast.

Both species can grow in open areas, feeding on nutrients in the soil. Next time they pop up, I wont eat it--I want to see what color the spores are, and I wasn't too thrilled with it as food.


The top. This photo is from the morning of September 1.


Alexis took this picture after I harvested the mushroom, in the afternoon of September 2. You can see how the mushroom grew and changed shape from the first picture. The large blemish is probably from slugs grazing at the surface.

Comments

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Alas, poor Sporick.

[bleppo.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

[momomom.livejournal.com]

Do you know why some mushrooms have through and through shot put like holes in them?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Not sure what you mean. Holes that are part of the structure of the mushroom?

[(Anonymous)]

That's a fine figure of a puff-ball!!!

[turil.livejournal.com]

Hi Jef! I've been happily discovering that my Mom's area has tons and tons of mushrooms these days, and I think I might have even found some chanterelles. I'm pretty sure they are, but the sites I've been checking made me a little paranoid. I have seen the Jack O' Lanterns (and even saw them glowing a tiny bit), so I'm pretty darned sure this is not a Jack O' Lantern, but I just want to be sure. Can you confirm?





The spore print was pure white (which was kind of cool!).

We've also got a ton of fairy ring mushrooms in my mom's lawn (she does mow much of her yard, much to my frustration!. :-)

Sorry.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see! I missed a bit in the address...

One last time (I hope)!

Re: Sorry.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Nope, not chantarelles--those gills are definitely gills, and on chantarelles they are just folds in the material of the mushroom. Lots of inedible-to-toxic lookalikes out there!

Re: Sorry.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Hygrophoropsis aurantica seems like a pretty good match. Mycologist David Fischer says "The gills on this species are repeatedly dichotomous. Follow any one gill from the stalk toward the cap edge, and you will come to a "fork in the road" several times before you get to the edge of the cap."

Aha!

[turil.livejournal.com]

I'd seen all the other pictures of the False Chanterelle and it showed it looking more brown and darker in the center (this one was lighter in the center. But that photo at the top of the Wikipedia page looks exactly like this one.

Also, I'd seen photos of chanterelles in some of the books websites which had gills that looked exactly like this, in addition to the more flat versions. So I really was confused. This one smells so amazingly sweet, and everyone talks about the chanterelles smelling like apricots...

Oh well. Thanks for pointing out the obvious pictures that I hadn't managed to see yet. :-)

Now I'm really confused!

[turil.livejournal.com]

I looked at some more, while I was out today (soooooo many mushrooms!!!!) and came back and found Tom Volk's site which shows this: Chanterelle on the right, Jack o' Lantern on left (http://mushroom-collecting.com/8-24-06_43.jpg). The main thing is the smell, though. The ones I have are sooooo sweet smelling, and neither the False Chanterelle nor the Jack o' Lantern are supposed to smell sweet, right? Also, the ridges on some parts are indeed almost flat and there are ridges moving horizontally to the main ones. (As mykoweb says "often cross-veined or anastomosing".)

Re: Now I'm really confused!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I would have said that it was a chantarelle on the left and the omphalotus on the right. Good thing I don't like to eat the things too much! Also, they all smell like mushrooms to me.

Anyway, it sounds like you have some doubt, and you know what they say about doubt when it comes to mushrooms.

It was a chanterelle!

[turil.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to get back to you with a confirmation that this is exactly what a chanterelle looks like, and it most definitely was a chanterelle! Yay! (I've now collected more of them, and they are drying, ready to be made into something raw vegan...)

I went to one of the mushroom talks at the Common Ground Fair this past weekend, given by Greg Marley (author of Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares), and he brought a whole lot of mushrooms to help people learn to identify them. He's also a really kind fellow, too, if you ever get a chance to meet him, I definitely recommend it!

Anyway, yeah, those "gills" are indeed false gills, and the smell really is a great indicator of whether or not it's a chanterelle. The apricot/orange smell is very strong.

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

omg he eats brains!