Mushrooms

We used to have a walnut tree out front, that died pretty much when we moved here.  It only produced a little bit, and then passed away.  It was cut down, leaving only a little micro-stump in the front lawn.  After it died it's roots are being eagerly devoured by a mycelium, which fruited like mad with the late spring rain.

You can see the poor stump, and tell where the roots were by the lines of mushrooms.  I had lines of mushrooms running through the backyard, too.  I actually dug until I found old roots there, and deduced that before I moved in there was a similar tree cut down in the backyard.

On a hike in the Muir Woods during the rainy season we had some good luck with the mushrooms.

 

 I love the colors on this one.  Maybe a hygrocybe.

 Some kind of coral fungus

 An amanita.  I think amanita aspera

 Another great coral fungus

 Stinkhorn, maybe?

 This is just a great picture.  Love the black on green. Cortinarius Violaceus, I think.

more below...

 Not sure here.  Maybe a honey mushroom?  I love that you can see the mycelium eating the log, all white and moldy.

No idea on these either.  I think more hygrocybes.

Some kind of bolete, maybe, or a slippery jack.  I like how the cap is all textured.  Notice no gills on the underside.

An amazing shelf fungus.  I often think these are the prettiest of the mushrooms.

If mushrooms had zombies they would look like this

(a helvella, I think)

Or this

(another helvella?)

These look all fuzzy. 

I have no idea what this is.  All I know is that it's a little too old to be lifting up it's skirt like that.

One of the best parts about living on the west coast in the temperate rainforest area has been all the mushrooms out here.  Years ago I hiked the pacific northwest coast from California to Canada (not the whole coast - a bit here and a bit there), and saw more mushrooms than I ever knew existed.  After seeing both a blue mushroom and a bright purple mushroom on the same day, I was hooked.  I bought a book and have been in love ever since.