The Day of the Giants

On Labor Day Monday I decided to venture to Cambridge Area (some 50km from my home).  In the old oak woods I found Giant Puffballs (Calvatia gigantea). This mushrooms shows up at the end of the summer in various spots - meadows, woods, shrubs etc. It is quite common find and nothing unusual. But this time there was more than 20 giants in less than 100m². They did not form any noticeable fairy ring (I did find them before in partial fairy rings) but were scattered around like some toys on the playground. Furthermore, there was very little damage on the bodies, and that is quite unusual. Despite fairly dry conditions none of them was cracked and discolored.




[caption id="attachment_2555" align="alignnone" width="663"]DSCN5617 Beautiful Giant Puffball specimen[/caption]

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Here is the picture with my Blackberry Z10 for the scale (Z10 is approximately 14cmX7cm):

[caption id="attachment_2557" align="alignnone" width="663"]DSCN5620 Z10 for a Scale[/caption]

On the fallen logs around puffbals there was a lot of Clytocibula ocula, which certainly qualify as LBM, but looks nice and is very photogenic.

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On the way back to my car I passed through coniferous forest (Hemlock-spruce combo). The first thing to notice was a scatter of  Agaricus silvicola mushrooms. They never grow in great numbers and are scattered over the wide area. Can be found in both coniferous and deciduous woods. It is a good edible, very popular in Europe, but at this time of the year there is no point trying to pick some. Bugs infest them even in button stage.




[caption id="attachment_2563" align="alignnone" width="663"]DSCN5597 Young mushroom totally consumed by bugs[/caption]

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Than I saw quite a big flash of Saffron Milk Cap (Lactarius delicious) mushroom. There was quite a number of mature specimens around, which indicates to me that flash is at the end. It did allow me to pick and collect a small quantity of buttons not infested by bugs.


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Comments

  1. Cookin Mum6 September 2016 at 05:32

    Wow , Zoran that looks amazing. I am glad to find you via Donnas post. Maybritt here, remember? I hope you are well and all are happy safe and healthy.

    ReplyDelete

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