Another big fairy ring of Chlorophyllum molybdites (Green-spored Lepiota)

Someone got my contact info from a show I've got up right now, and told me about a big fairy ring by her house. It always seems to be a race against The Mower with these, but this time I made it.

It was big.

Green-spored Lepiota fairy ring

The street is over by the trees, and you could see the ring from there.  That black thing is my backpack.
 
      

My knife (above) is 3-1/8" long (unopened).

These are mature, and starting to dry up; the surface felt just like parchment paper.



The gills (which start out pure white)



The GILLS



The GILLS!!!

Lookit that! Like seaweed, or Georgia O’Keeffe.

When these are young and just coming up, the gills are lovely white (see here for another entry, of another fairy ring, from another time). The whole thing is white, except for some slight buff coloration of the veil remnants on the cap.  Also when they're young seems to be when overly-eager people decide they look just like the button mushrooms in the store, and since they smell nice and are so pretty and clean, they eat them and get violently ill. Don't eat these. Just look at them, and say "Wow! Look how big some of these suckers are! Aren't they cool?!? And growing in a ring like that!"

Green-spored Lepiota/Fairy Ring*

Young Green-spored Lepiota, veil remnants on cap

The enormous fairy ring, 10-12' across (later I read that that's not really all that big for them)

Chlorophyllum molybdites

Got another alert on the Mushroom Hotline (thank you, JS!) that this fairy ring was back--I had seen it while driving a few weeks earlier, but by the time I got there 2 days later it was mowed down. This time I went the day of the call (and I wore my cape).

Then I marched over to my next-door neighbor's house to show him a huge specimen I'd collected for a spore-print (much bigger even than the one in this photo), and he said he saw me standing in the doorway with it, and thought, "What is that, a LAMP?"  

I was pretty sure what it was, after rooting around in field guides and online, but the spore print confirmed it--green! From an all-white mushroom! To be fair, these were very freshly opened. By the time I got it home, the gills were already starting to darken with maturing spores.

Not lethal, but still poisonous, and WILL make you good and SICK. And if you're in bad shape to begin with (or just little), you could die. So, no Chlorophyllum molybdites for you!

*Many different species will grow in rings. All rings are not Green-spored Lepiotas! And all Green-spored Lepiota don't grow in rings!