White jelly fungus (and more chanterelles)

Exidia alba--synonym Ductifera pululahuana

Lots of Chanterelles

About 6” of rain in 3 days means a whole lot of mushrooms are bursting forth…there's so many chanterelles out that I was perfectly comfortable GIVING AWAY the whole bag from the last outing. Two people at work seemed interested enough, as I babbled on & on about mushrooms (like I do), that I asked them if they'd like to try some, and they said yes, with believable enthusiasm, so I picked the last batch just for them.

There's so many of them that when this woman overheard us, and came to see them, and said "Oh, that's what those are??? I just mowed a whole bunch of them down before work today!," I * did * not * even * care.

SO much nicer than the paranoia and stress involved with MORELS. Chanterelles are prolific; they show up in the same area year after year, they're really easy to spot, they're all over the place, and they keep coming up for months--they'll be around, in abundance, through the fall. I know 5 places right this second that I could take someone and we would find chanterelles. Unlike some mushrooms we know.

The little white jelly fungus is Exidia alba; it's about an inch across.

What’s so great about chanterelles

That’s a comment, not a question.

This lacy, ruffly, scalloped, swooping Baroque sculpture is the beautiful underside of a chanterelle. When I turned it over and saw this I heard music and faeries appeared.

Then I ate it

Crown-tipped coral

Artomyces pyxidatus. Or Clavicorona pyxidata, same thing. Welcome to the wacky world of mushroom taxonomy; I can’t keep up. Something to do with DNA (the mushroom’s, not mine).

Anyway, these always grow on wood, like well-rotted logs. None of this "can look like it's growing from soil but it's really on an underground root" business. They grow ON LOGS.

The little distinctive crown tips are there even on very small young ones.