The Urban Pantheist

All-white gilled mushrooms coming directly from dead wood? Oyster mushroom, you have to say. But not exactly--this one gets associated with the oyster group because of its similarities, but has some important differences. This mushroom with its all-white almost translucent flesh always feeds on dead conifers. (True oyster mushrooms will grow on almost anything--I grew some on my junk mail.)


These beauties are more accurately called "angel wings" Pleurocybella porrigens. Like the oyster mushroom, these have been collected as food for ages--plus they are easy to identify and hard to confuse with much else. Unfortunately, it turns out they are toxic, containing a cytotoxic fatty acid. There have been fatalities, mostly of elderly people in Japan who happened to also have pre-existing kidney problems.

Younger people with healthy kidneys may be able to eat moderate amounts of angel wings without health problems--but modern field guides play it safe, listing this formerly "edible" species as "poisonous."

"Pleuro-" means side, and "porrigens" means extending forward, both refer to the way the mushroom emerges straight out from the side of its substrate. The -cybella part is a bit of mystery. The spelling is close to Cybele, an ancient mother/nature goddess, but the pronunciation suggested puts it closer to "sibella," a Greek word meaning "prophetess."

On Sunday the weather started to clear.

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Like most of the things in this post, these mushrooms are unidentified. They are polypores--which is a bit like saying an animal is an arthropod.

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On Saturday we drove to Vermont to see Alexis' side of the family for holiday type stuff. My dad was going to come but decided the weather forecast was making him nervous and opted to stay home instead. There was some thought that this was overcautiousness, but in retrospect I'm completely in agreement with it. There were four hours of slippy slidey snowy driving, on tires that had been officially condemned by my garage (get them replaced before winter, they said in the middle of December). On the last paved road before the dirt mountain path at the end of our journey the car spun a full 90 degrees so I continued the motion with the wheel and pointed us in the opposite direction, then brought us to a hotel parking lot where we left the car. My wonderful sister in law came down and got us in a more appropriate Vermonter vehicle, and we decompressed in their lovely home.

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Mom and new baby Annaliese.

Here are my last three photos from Vermont: they're all about warmth and cold, or textures, or light quality, or something. One has a painting of a naked lady in it, but don't worry, it's in a bar and has been censored to a soft R rating. ( Read more... )

We made a quick trip up to Vermont this past weekend. We wanted to see Alexis' grandmother while she was down from Toronto, and it was a good opportunity to socialize Jim to babies, toddlers, and elderly folks. Also, it helped him get over his shyness about walking on snow: that's all there is, buddy, get used to it!
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We took a little hike up to see Moss Glen Falls. ( Read more... )

Driving out of Vermont.

On this day in 365 species: White lychnis. "It is joyous chance that what we agree with bees and butterflies about what makes a flower attractive. "

Looking at a spider on cottonmanifesto's mom's porch in Vermont.

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Yellow Flag (or swamp flag, or yellow iris), a showy European garden flower that has escaped cultivation in North America.