What's it look like to you...

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:51 pm

Found this thing in the woods beside the trail going down into Linville Gorge, NC. Kind'a warty looking.

Gordon C. Snelling · Post by **Gordon C. Snelling** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:37 pm

Puffball of some sort.

tpe · Post by **tpe** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 1:06 am

Could it also be some kind of immature stinkhorn, the ones that explode into witches vomit when they mature? Simmilar to the one in this link http://www.mushroomexpert.com/clathrus_ruber.html

tim

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:11 am

Thanks Gordon, Tim

I am not really up on mushrooms, though I should be. However they are interesting and beautiful at times. Thanks for the link there Tim.

rovebeetle · Post by **rovebeetle** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:42 am

I don't think this is a puff ball.

I know mushrooms a bit because I have a passion for them (I mean eating

) and it is good to know what you collect.

Anyway, young mushrooms are sometimes difficult to recognize. This might either be (as already said) a member of the stink horn family (in a wider sense), but death caps (genus Amanita) also look like that when they are (very) young. The dense warty structure breaks up when they emerge from this "egg" and this is what we usually see as the white patches on the hat of e.g. Amanita muscaria.

You should have visited this place again after 1 or 2 days. I would really be interested what this turned out eventually.

Cheers

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 2:08 am

rovebeetle commented:

You should have visited this place again after 1 or 2 days. I would really be interested what this turned out eventually.

Indeed it would be interesting rovebeetle. Thanks

But unfortunately, this is well over an hours drive away to get to where it is growing and by now it has probably fallen to snails, cryptic beetles, and hikers.

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 3:15 am

I actually found an Amanita the other day, I think it was a blusher, also some blackening waxcaps. In the middle of July in the Northern hemisphere! Shows what kack wet weather we've had this 'summer'!!

I would go along with the other guesses - looks very amanita'ish to me, although could be a stinkhorn...

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 11:48 am

My first reaction, due to the scales, was Amanita but it didn't look right. However it is a freshly emerging fruiting body of the Solitary Amanita A. echinocephala

See http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/gallery/ ... 1~gid~.asp

rovebeetle · Post by **rovebeetle** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 12:15 am

Harold Gough wrote:My first reaction, due to the scales, was Amanita but it didn't look right. However it is a freshly emerging fruiting body of the Solitary Amanita A. echinocephala

See http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/gallery/ ... 1~gid~.asp

Harold, I would be careful with such ID's. Almost all Amanita species which, fully grown, have these white velum remains on the hat (A. muscaria, A. rubescens, A. pantherina, etc.) look almost exactly like that at this stage.

In addition, A. echinocephala is not yet recorded from N-America.

Cheers

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 1:32 am

Fair comment, Harry. That was my first reaction ( I had A. citrina in mind) but this looks at least worthy of further images, as it matures, and possibly passing to a specialist, if it conforms to type.

It is a bit risky to identify many mushrooms from photographs and certainly not the basis for recording a new species. On the other hand, the number of recorded species can be related to the number of people looking for fungi (or any other group*). People collecting alongside myself have found two species not recorded previously in the UK, on from a meadow in central England which was supposed to be restricted to salt-rich coastal habitats, and verified. Roger Phillips' superb book of the UK fungi had to have about 20% more species added 25 years later, when revised. How many more might remian undiscovered in the USA?

What I am saying is that, need for caution granted, one should not discount the presence of a species just because it is not included in the standard books. * Had I done so, I would not have published papers adding 10 or so Collembola species to the British list,that at a time when only three or four of us were actively collecting in the UK.

Harold