Midweek Magnificent Mushrooms! #2

Hello everyone! Welcome back to our mushroom series which I hope you will all enjoy as we cover some of the more common and a few uncommon mushrooms that are found, not only in this area, but all through the northeastern part of N. America. And sometimes elsewhere too. This is not going to be an exhaustive review of mushrooms and if you are planning to pick wild mushrooms to eat, then please go with someone who knows mushrooms and knows which are the best for eating and which to stay away from.

Unfortunately there are many toxic and very poisonous mushrooms around and they sometimes look very much like edible varieties. So, today we have a beautiful mushroom, the Golden Pholiota, which is quite common in our area and likes to grow on decaying logs of coniferous trees. They can be found from late summer into fall. And they truly are a bright and easy to see mushroom.

Golden Pholiota

I first saw them in 2019 in a very dark, shaded area of tall pines and spruce trees. It was a very dull, cloudy day and these mushrooms really stood out, quite far off the path. It was quite something to see them so bright in the dark landscape. They were growing on a very old, fallen white pine tree. Although not listed as a toxic species, they are bitter and can cause intestinal problems so it is best to leave them alone.

Golden Pholiota underneath.

But they are great for photography purposes! The caps can be up to 6 inches (15cm) wide and the stems up to 4 inches (10cm) tall. The ones I saw in these pics were 4 inch (10cm) caps with stems 3 to 4 inches (7.5 to 10cm) tall. I found them on several different rotting logs but have never seen them anywhere else. I hope you enjoy, have a great day and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2024 Steve McLeod.