Diario de matt227

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/90617745

I site Dylan's pic because it is a perfect find of my favorite mushroom Tyromyces chiones.

This innocuous and often overlooked shelf fungus is soft and and spongy, with white pores beneath. Its color varies from bright white when fresh to dull yellow when dry. When fresh it exudes a watery juice when squeezed.

I often see this kind of example, on birch wood sticks, 1-3 inches in diameter. The fresh specimen smells like pink cherries. It is a pleasant almost powdery fragrance.

When broken the stick smells of cinnamon and the wood is yellow inside.

I have smelled these fresher specimens from 10 feet away. The fragrance of either the pink cherries or cinnamon has hit me when I'm hiking or bicycling. I figure out where the wind is coming from in that spot and head upwind. Within about 10 feet I find a stick or a downed branch and enjoy the smells both from the fungus and the inner wood. If the branch is short enough I can smell it on one end or the other.

It also strikes me odd that I have not seen mention in guide books or online of the cinnamon scent of the wood. The fungus itself is often mentioned as having a pleasant scent.

Still it is a find. When I have lead groups or been with a friend and broken open the stick and passed it around everyone smiles and finds the smell of cinnamon enchanting. And often they enjoy how nice the fungus smells but just can't place what it smells like. But it's nice, it's pleasant.

I started going through identification of one of my favorite species that comes into my home on a regular basis, Eastern Parson Spider. I usually call this spider the harbinger of spring because it often shows up in my home around the Spring Equinox.

Though the 74 pages of needs ID seemed daunting, what I found most interesting was what was most often misidentified. The most common misidentification were members of the Brush legged spiders (Schizocosa) each new page seemed to have at least one and it was immediately obvious because the background was either sand or forest floor, whereas parson spider backgrounds were often walls, carpets, glass and plastic containers and in one case a cardboard tube.

Other misidentifications included other gnaphosids, dwarf spiders, immature fishing spiders, wolf spiders, sac spiders and ant mimics.

Also thanks to @jgw_atx for helping me remember Schizocosa.

After a couple of days of humidity and series of autumn rains the mushroom garden in my backyard has expanded. Huzzah! Over 30 species spotted in what amounts to an elongated pile of collected sticks and logs.

Some highlights include:

an unidentified fungus on buckthorn berries

glowing Panellus

2 kinds of witches butter

and a new kind of slime mold Badhamia utricularis

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/mushroom-garden

I am trying to make a mushroom garden in my yard. Not for edibility but more like a wildflower garden. I bring sticks and logs to a shaded wet area of my yard and periodically water it like I would a vegetable garden. My goal is to see what species transfer and to watch them in their different forms and see if they spread and transfer. So far it is mainly made up of crusts, turkey tails, slime molds, jellies and other annual mushrooms.

I am using the tag mushroomgarden to identify the species I have in my mushroom garden.