Fungi

August · Forest Floor

Blue-green Cracking Russula

A broad sage-blue cap breaks into light islands like old glaze crazing across a ceramic surface. One torn wedge turns upward to reveal clean ivory gills, sharpening the contrast between the mushroom’s cool, weathered color and the dark soil and brown leaf litter around it.

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June · Decaying Hardwood

Club-Like Tuning Fork

Hundreds of egg-yolk-yellow clubs branch into tiny forks across a slick, almost black log. The upright tips resemble miniature antlers or flames, spreading in loose colonies through beads of moisture, bare wood grain, and shadow.

August · Forest Floor

Collared Earthstar

Soft fawn-colored rays open across the leaf litter around a round, velvety taupe spore sac. The papery arms fold and crease like worn cloth, with dry oak leaves, gray sticks, and several smaller earthstars repeating the tender star shape nearby.

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August · Wet Forest Floor

Common Earthball

Two tawny spheres sit together in clear moving water, their leathery surfaces stippled with fine dark warts. Ripples bend reflected sky and branches around them, carrying highlights over submerged brown leaves, stones, and a diagonal creekside twig.

July 2023 · Hardwood Forest

Eastern Cauliflower Mushroom

A cream-colored fruiting body billows from the leaf litter in a dense fountain of thin, curled ribbons. Warm beige shadows trace every translucent fold, while gray twigs, dark earth, mossy bark, and a tree trunk encircle the ruffled mass.

August · Forest Floor

Entoloma indigoferum

A round cap appears painted in stormy denim, darkest at the softly depressed center and dusted with tiny silver flecks. Low side views reveal warm gray-pink gills and a slim blue-gray stalk, while twigs, oak leaves, and one small green seedling return the mushroom to its modest woodland scale.

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August · Forest Floor

Field Bolete

The rounded cap is a soft red-orange, matte and almost velvety, above a stalk that begins golden yellow and deepens through rust to wine red at the base. Curled wet leaves, dark wood, and one bright green seedling gather around the upright mushroom.

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August · Forest Floor

Fragile Dapperling

A pointed lemon-yellow cap balances on a stem nearly as thin as grass. The upright views emphasize its clean, high-key color among russet leaves; turned on its side, the mushroom reveals delicate ivory gills and a papery cap margin.

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August · Wet Forest Floor

Indigo Milk Cap

Turned upward, the broad gills radiate in saturated indigo, shifting from silvery blue at the rim to ink-dark cobalt where they gather around the stalk. The cap above is a powder blue among fern stems and wet leaves. Broken edges release blue milk, staining the damaged gills an even deeper blue.

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July · Hardwood Forest Floor

Jellied False Coral Fungus

Short ivory branches rise in tight, waxy clusters, some blunt and clubbed, others divided like small antlers. Cream tips glow against russet leaves, thin green grass, dark soil, and the scattered stems of the hardwood floor.

July · Hardwood Cavities

Lynx Paw Oyster

A warm cream cap projects from a dark split in the tree, its underside opening into ivory gills that sweep back toward the attachment point. Wider vertical views show the small fan against rough gray-brown bark, black hollow wood, lichen, and the green forest beyond.

First July observation → · Second July observation →

August · Forest Floor

Old-Man-of-the-Woods

A near-black mushroom rises upright from luminous moss, its cap broken into ragged charcoal scales edged with silver gray. The same shaggy pattern continues down the thick ash-gray stalk, set against fern green, russet leaves, and a damp decaying log.

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July & August · Rain-darkened Wood

Orange Jelly Spot

Marigold-orange folds gather on rain-darkened bark like small translucent ruffles. Their glossy, gelatinous surfaces catch the light at close range, while the wider view reduces them to brilliant pinpoints on a slender charcoal-brown trunk.

July observation → · August observation →

July & August · Forest Floor

Ornate-Stalked Bolete

The late-August mushroom stands whole above dry leaves: a smooth sunflower-yellow cap balanced on an even brighter stalk wrapped in a deeply raised gold network. The earlier hand-held view turns the cap over to show a fine, evenly yellow pore surface.

July observation → · Paired mushrooms → · Research Grade return →

August · Fallen Hardwood

Powder-Scale Pholiota

Small cinnamon-red caps cluster from the side of a fallen log, their darker centers densely dusted with upright scales. The caps thin toward translucent ember-orange rims above rusty gills, wet brown leaves, and a fine green film of moss.

August · Mossy Wood

Ramaria fumigata

A many-branched coral rises in smoke-soft mauve. Its rounded stems split and resplit, crowding together before they finish in cream tips. Bright moss wraps the wood beneath it; a wider view lets the delicate coral shrink back into the green length of the fallen trunk.

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July & August · Two Field Encounters

Red Chanterelle

A tiny cinnabar-red chanterelle lifts a curled, irregular cap above a short orange stalk. Apricot ridges appear beneath the folded edge, while gravel, splintered sticks, gray stones, and dark soil make the small flare of color easy to measure.

July observation → · August observation →

July & August · Rock Surface

Rock Greenshield Lichen

A broad patch of silver-sage lobes spreads over charcoal stone, its edges curling into soft, shieldlike ruffles. The center is rough with clustered bumps and gray-green granules, giving the lichen a dense texture against the smoother rock.

July observation → · August observation →

August · Forest Floor

Shaggy-Stalked Bolete

Old-gold caps shade toward ochre-orange, their rims lit from below by a dense lemon-yellow pore surface. The thick, curving stalks are wrapped in a deeply raised yellow network streaked with rust and red, almost like open latticework. Moss, silver-green lichen, oak leaves, and twigs crowd the low shelter around them.

August · Moss & Leaf Litter

Small Yellow Mushrooms

One egg-yolk-yellow mushroom rises cleanly through crossed pine needles, its wavy cap opening above a narrow golden stem. Blunt ridges run beneath the cap while wet brown leaves, black soil, and scattered orange fragments repeat the color across the forest floor.

August · Mossy Forest Floor

Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic

Ruby-red spore sacs rise from translucent amber bases that gleam like wet resin among bright moss. One mature globe opens in a dark, star-shaped mouth; other views reveal a tall stalked form, crowded scarlet colonies, and an ivory immature cluster whose gelatinous lobes are still tightly folded.

August · Decaying Wood

Velvet-Footed Tap

A broad amber-brown cap rises above a thick, softly textured buff stalk, with smaller caps repeating the shape nearby. One low view reveals the dark underside, while wet oak leaves, pine needles, gray branches, moss, and deep woodland green surround the substantial mushroom.

August · Forest Floor

White Coral Fungus

A dense ivory body rises from blackened wood in hundreds of fine upright branches. Cream shadows deepen inside the coral-like mass, while wet leaf litter, splintered charcoal bark, and fresh green plants make the ivory crown the brightest form on the forest floor.

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June & August · Two Field Encounters

White-Pored Chicken of the Woods

Broad salmon-orange shelves stack into rippling rosettes, each fan banded with peach and finished by a narrow cream edge. Close views reveal velvety upper surfaces and a chalk-white pore layer; on the steep wooded bank, light passes through the thinner margins above dark roots, stone, and moss.

June observation → · August observation →