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

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