Central Pennsylvania Wild Mushroom Club

It is my personal opinion that the frequent rains have pushed the fall mushroom fruiting season past it's peak.  But, as the recent club walk at Greenwood Furnace demonstrated, there are still a fair number of mushrooms in the woods.  And the colors of the mushrooms sometimes rival those of the fall foliage.  That is what I found during a recent walk in Tuscarora State Forest in southern Huntingdon County.  I generally did not find as many mushrooms there as I expected for this time of year, but there were a few spots with a disproportionate bounty.  I wandered into one of those spots, gathered the mushrooms I saw around me, arranged them on an old stump, and snapped the photo below. 

The mushroom in the upper left corner is the Varnish Conch, discussed in a previous blog.  In the lower left is a sample of the Orange Mock Oyster.  I found a remarkably well preserved specimen of this mushroom early in the spring and did a blog about it.  In the lower center, upside down, is a mushroom called the Hedgehog.  I can not say for certain if it is Dentinum repandum or the similar Dentinum umbilicatum, but in either case it is one of only a few mushrooms with teeth-like spore bearing surfaces, rather than gills or tubes.  Fortunately, determining which of the Dentinum species you have isn't of great concern as both of the above are edible and considered choice.  There are a few less savory Dentinun species, so you do need to narrow it down to one of these two if planning to eat this mushroom. 

And finally, on the right side of the photo are a number of Blewits, or Clitocybe nuda.  Both the caps and the gills have a lilac tint when fresh.  The cap usually fades to tan or grey and the gills to a pinkish buff.  The Blewit is a popular late season edible but this is not a mushroom recommended for beginners, as there are a number of Cortinarius and other species that can be easily confused with it if you aren't careful.  One might expect that a purple mushroom would be so unusual that nothing else could possibly be confused with it.  Such is not the case.  Several of the Cortinarius species also have a violet tint and are quite common.  I did a blog last fall regarding the attractive Silver Violet Cortinarius and I saw quite a few patches of that mushroom again this fall.  At this stage in my mushroom education I will not eat the Blewit without first taking a spore print.  The Blewit has salmon pink spores, while the Corts have rusty brown spores.  As noted in the prior blog, it is often possible to discern the spores of the Corts by looking closely at the stem for bits of the cobwebby veil that catch the reddish-brown spores.  Specimens of both were found at the recent club walk and those in attendance know what I'm talking about when I say the appearance of the two is quite close.  You just have to be extra careful in your identification if collecting this mushroom for the table. 

As always, comments from the more experienced are invited.  Happy hunting. 

Dave