A good sized crowd of club members and non members met on at the Pleasant Valley Park parking lot. After a short question and answer session concerning seasonable mushrooms, common mushroom edibility fallacies like cooking mushrooms with a penny we moved into the forest with our guide Pia van de Venne  of Friends of Murryisville Parks and followed Hank’s trial. Undergrowth was fairly high preventing much mushroom hunting until we came upon areas of Oak where we stated to find lots of different species. We found quite a few Amanita citrina var citrina and Laccaria ochropurpurea (Purple-gilled Laccaria) along with a number of boletes and smaller things. One interesting find was the Blue-green stain  Chlorociboria sp. We normally find the just the stained wood but this day we were lucky and found the fruiting bodies too. There are two near identical Chlorociboria sp. Chlorociboria aeruginascens and Chlorociboria aeruginosa and the only way to quickly confirm the species is by looking at the spores. The spores of C. aeruginosa are reported to be longer, minimum length of 10μm, than those of C. aeruginascens, 6 to 8μm. I took the specimen home and examined the spores and can confirm the dimensions as around 6 x 1.5μm and confirm the identification of C. aeruginascens.

Species list entered by Richard Jacob. Species identified by Blaine Sanner and Richard Jacob.

List of species found on the walk at Pleasant Valley Park:
Amanita abrupta (),
Amanita citrina var citrina (),
Bisporella citrina (Yellow Fairy Cups),
Boletus subvelutipes (Red-Mouth Bolete),
Cantharellus lateritius (Smooth chanterelle),
Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa (Coral Slime),
Chlorociboria aeruginascens (Blue-green Stain),
Clavulina cristata (Crested Coral Fungus),
Clavulinopsis aurantiocinnabarina (Spindle Shaped Orange Coral),
Cortinarius iodes (Iodine Cort / Viscid Violet Cort),
Daldinia concentrica (Carbon Balls),
Entoloma abortivum (Aborted Entoloma),
Exsudoporus frostii (Frost’s Bolete; Candy Apple Bolete),
Hypomyces chrysospermus (Bolete Mold),
Laccaria amethystina (Amethyst Tallow-gill or Amethyst Deceiver),
Laccaria ochropurpurea (Purple-gilled Laccaria),
Laetiporus sulphureus (Chicken Mushroom; Sulphur Shelf),
Lycoperdon perlatum (Gem-studded Puffball),
Marasmius capillaris (),
Mycena haematopus (Bleeding Mycena),
Mycena luteopallens (Walnut Mycena),
Naematoloma fasciculare (Sulfur Tuft),
Panellus stipticus (Luminescent Panellus, bitter oyster),
Phylloporus rhodoxanthus (Gilled Bolete),
Polyporus squamosus (Dryad’s Saddle, Pheasant Polypore),
Polyporus varius (),
Russula mariae (Purple-bloom Russula),
Scleroderma citrinum (Pigskin Poison Puffball),
Scutellinia scutellata (Reddish Eyelash Cup),
Trametes versicolor (Turkey-tail),
Trichaptum biforme (Violet Toothed-Polypore),
Tyromyces chioneus (White Cheese Polypore),
Xerocomellus chrysenteron (Red-Cracked Bolete),
Xerula furfuracea (Rooted Collybia)

Species not currently on clubs life list:
Various red capped Russula sp.
Honey mushroom rhizomorphs
Leccinum sp,