Laetiporus cincinnatus, for real this time

Spilling out of a tree

Laetiporus cincinnatus white pore surface

In between things

A friend called me on the Mushroom Hotline to tell me about some mushrooms growing in his yard (not these--some great Omphalotus illudens, coming soon), and I could see this in his neighbor's yard. 

My friend wasn't home yet and the neighbors weren't home either, so I couldn't ask them if I could have it, and it took a LOT of strength of will for me to not just harvest it and run. But it all worked out--I found a perfectly ripe pawpaw on the ground nearby which I DID take without asking anyone because I've had a long-running issue with pawpaws, namely, that I've heard about them and was intrigued by them and I've never seen one fruiting (I see the pretty blue-green trees in the woods all the time, with blooms) and never eaten one and people keep telling me, "Oh, they had them at the Farmers Market last week!" and I had just talked about them again two days earlier so I decided that pawpaw had my name on it, and I took it. I saw it lying there, wondered what it was, the leaves of the tree registered, the decision was made, it was in my bag. Look, know, take. That's how long it took.

When I got home I called my foodie friend down the street, and we shared it, and it was magnificent. Totally made my day.

And since then, my friend did talk to his neighbors who said I could have the Chicken with their blessing, so tomorrow I'm going back over there to take more pics of the Omphalotus and hopefully those little girls a few houses down haven't messed up the chicken too bad (they got curious when I was taking pics, and by the time I was leaving they were poking it with sticks or something).

Note: this is an atypical form of L. cincinnatus, they usually grow near the base of trees or a little distance from the tree, seemingly from the ground, but really on an underground root. And usually in a rosette pattern, not overlapping shelves like this. Several people reported atypical growths of these this year.

The title of this post is referring to the previous post where I was getting all whipped up about some mushrooms I found that I thought were Laetiporus cincinnatus. I found them when they were quite small and I was tracking them, and on the 3rd visit I harvested them, and even showed them to people at work (oh, great! now people with even less familiarity with mushrooms have been given the wrong information by someone they think knows things!), until I finally realized they weren't Chicken mushrooms at all. I was chagrined (also taken aback, also brought up short. Chicken mushrooms are supposed to be one of the easiest ones. I just need to slow down).

Anyway--how 'bout those shapes, eh?

Very young Berkeley's Polypore which in my excitement I misidentified as a Laetiporus cincinnatus

Although I've got a backlog of images of other stuff I've found in the woods recently, I found this on a hike today, and it rose to the top.

Bondarzewia berkeleyi

Growing happily amongst the poison ivy...

Chicken of the Woods! The pink kind, with white pore surface.

Four days later!

Sept. 5 update: No, no, no, it's a Berkeley's Polypore, a rookie mistake! Something about that pore surface was whispering to me, saying, "No, wait, Chicken of the Woods is SMOOTH underneath, it's not just that this one is so young..." so I started looking at ID things and lots of other pics, and although the surface could maybe pass as a Laetiporus cincinnatus, the overall shape and growth pattern just wasn't quite right, and eventually the pore surface pretty much clinched it for me. Not to mention the color, which I chalked up to it being slightly waterlogged from rain. Oh, well, it's a fine example of trying to cram the facts into what you want to see. I wanted it to be a fine fat chicken of the woods, so I overrode that little nagging feeling...

(Original Aug. 30 post) I found it 3 days ago. Now I have to keep going back to check it, because mushrooms can grow really fast, and I don't want to miss it when it's at its succulent best. Except now I'm going to lie awake at night worrying, and hoping no one else finds it. There is some small comfort in the fact that, while it was close to the path, it was on the cedar-y side, so maybe everybody else just skips that part thinking it's not worth looking there. These are growing up against a very big, very rotten oak. There was only about 15' of tree still upright. The rest was on the ground. But, perhaps I have already said too much.

Berkeley's Polypore engulfing a blade of grass

They are known for just growing around whatever's touching them. I sense no malice there, though.

Pore surface of young Bondarzewia berkeleyi

The shapes sure are incredible, this I know for sure.

Netted Rhodotus

Rhodotus palmatus

 
You can't make this stuff up.

I should have sent that image to NASA, and said, "I am an amateur astronomer. Look what I found! It was in the north-east sky."

 

These are the nice pink gills

This mushroom was in an impossible spot, at the bottom of a sort of pit of fallen logs all crammed into each other, so for the gill shot I was holding the camera at arm's-length (mine), underneath it, pointing up towards me, and aiming it in the direction I thought it should be, taking the shot and then previewing it, and doing that like 1,307 times in the sweltering heat and it was really getting dark so this is what I suppose one might call a "lucky shot." And who cares about the damn gills anyway, with a cap surface like that.

It's one of my all-time favorite mushrooms.