Coming soon to dirt near you.

February 21, 2007 10:55 AM

Soon you may find yourself in the company of mushrooms.If you're curious about them, Mykoweb, Tom Volk's Fungi (especially his FOTM section), Fungal Jungal, David Fischer's American Mushrooms, MushroomExpert.com, BCERN's Matchmaker and the recently mentioned Roger's Mushrooms are remarkably handy, replete with descriptions and keys for reading up and identifying whether something growing in your yard is heavenly or hellish. The North American Mycological Association maintains a list of affiliated clubs, too, if you want to enlist help in identifying something.
posted by cog_nate (18 comments total)

They'd better know what a portabella is, that's all I'm saying.
posted by mullingitover at 10:58 AM on February 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

Just be sure to destroy any mushrooms you might have recently bought at BJ's Wholesale Club.
posted by ericb at 10:59 AM on February 21, 2007

So this isn't about Gonzaga then?
posted by yerfatma at 11:05 AM on February 21, 2007

Did somebody say mushrooms?!
posted by knave at 11:50 AM on February 21, 2007

MAGIC, top post
posted by baker dave at 12:39 PM on February 21, 2007

I can't believe you beat me to the mushroom post I was planning (this is the second time this week I've been preempted). The Fungus of the Month page has kept me rapt in the past. I can't find it now, but somewhere on that page is a fungus that infiltrates a housefly's brain and drives the fly up a wall like an SUV in order to achieve maximum spread when it releases its spores. Awesome.

Anyway, my mushroom post was going to be tied in with Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris books and the release of Shriek: The Movie. But maybe that would have been too messy a post. Yours is nice and focussed.
posted by painquale at 1:12 PM on February 21, 2007

(Hm, maybe I'll still do a post dedicated to Ambergris. There's been one before, but there's enough new stuff out there to maybe it worth reposting. Shriek: An Afterword is a must for all fantasy and mushroom fans.)
posted by painquale at 1:19 PM on February 21, 2007

It's an important topic.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:31 PM on February 21, 2007

Shrooms are bad, m'kay?
posted by homunculus at 6:55 PM on February 21, 2007

Howard K. Smith to Anna Nicole Smith (while 8-months pregnant): Is this a mushroom trip?
posted by ericb at 7:09 PM on February 21, 2007

"...a shocking new video has surfaced of Anna Nicole. The video, which shows the former Playboy Playmate with her face painted like a clown, first aired on Monday night's Greta Van Susteren show on Fox News Channel. Anna, sounding confused, is eight-months pregnant in the video and talking to a doll in a carriage. Howard K. Stern repeatedly asks her, Is this a mushroom trip?'" ^*
posted by ericb at 7:14 PM on February 21, 2007

Howard K. Smith Stern.

A mistake from many commentators on television who on occasion verbally confuse the late newscaster Howard K. Smith with Anna's attorney Howard K. Stern -- as a result of her last given surname "Smith."
posted by ericb at 7:18 PM on February 21, 2007

oh thank you. i had given up, after every book in the library and hours of online image searches, i hadn't found this mushroom i saw in the woods. here it is. i can sleep now.
posted by RedEmma at 8:17 AM on February 22, 2007

Alas, I dreamed for years of returning to the woods of my childhood to hunt for the brilliant orange mushroom that could not be found in any book...

Only to find out years later that we were picking Hypomyces lactifluorum, the "lobster mushroom". Not a particular mushroom, per se, but a particular parasite that infects other mushrooms and turns them into, well, my childhood favorite. I will still return to those woods to find it again.

On preview: holy, I didn't even notice that you had linked Tom Volk. Good on you.
posted by dreamsign at 9:07 AM on February 22, 2007

What the hell!

I just thought I'd see what mushroom you were talking about, RedEmma. This isn't the first time I've come across the listing, but it is rather hard to come by and I spent some 20+ years wondering about it. I wonder how many people are looking for info on this particular critter.

Did you try it? They're delicious! (and hugely suspect -- bright orange, almost never any bugs... had our family not grown up picking them, I'm sure we'd have never started)
posted by dreamsign at 9:38 AM on February 22, 2007

i found it on the side of a woodsy path (like three of them) in Duluth, MN. never seen them before. and i plucked one and brought it home, but it stank like a dead fish by the next day. (i had it under glass though, so that might have been the problem.)

i would have never thought to eat it. and i'm still suspicious! (but if i see another one i'll think longer about the possibility.)
posted by RedEmma at 10:56 AM on February 22, 2007

painquale, thanks for putting me onto the Jeff VanderMeer stuff. I hadn't seen that before, and I really dig odd SF.

I haven't had the fortune of coming across lobster mushrooms, but several spots in Lawrence are lousy with Chanterelles in the late spring and summer, so I really can't complain. dreamsign, I don't know if you saw it, but there's a cool site linked to from Mykoweb: Portraits of Mushrooms from Japan.
posted by cog_nate at 11:39 AM on February 22, 2007

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posted by cog_nate at 11:59 AM on March 16, 2007