Nothing says "spring" like Sarcoscypha dudleyi!

Scarlet cups are the very first spring fungi to show up here (not including the crazy little ones that try to out-smart winter, and emerge in little protected crevices in fallen logs and then get all jacked-up and frozen), and I am very happy that they are a bright happy scarlet red. They pop out against the carpet of winter fallen leaves.

Sarcoscypha sp.

About 2". There's some old walnut husks next to this one for scale (I didn't put them there--it was probably faeries).

Also, this happened:

Sarcoscypha emerging in woven grass

And here's the whole field, with a happy Sarcoscypha right in the middle of it. Click to view huge so you can see it. They are bright.

Scarlet cup just off center in field

Okay, I was ready to plunk the name Sarcoscypha coccinea on this (from my Audubon Society's field guide) until I read more than one source (hint, hint). Michael Kuo's key says S. coccinea is found in the Pacific Northwest and California, and I am not in either of those places (although I dream of Oregon rainforests, the mecca of mushrooms in the U.S., and I would move there in one minute). So that means that what we find here in Missouri is S. dudleyi, or S. austriaca, and you can't tell them apart except by looking at their spores through a microscope, and as we all know, I don't HAVE a microscope. I'll just call them Sarcoscypha and be done with it.

I've only found these in one spot (well, one more over in this other spot), but this is only my second spring of mushrooms, so they may be all over the place but I haven't found them yet.

Oh, and these puff out spores when you blow on them--seems like there's always little pieces of stuff inside them, and when you blow it out to make them nice for a photo, there's about a 2-second delay and then a wisp of smoke-like spores comes out!

Anyway, now I believe that spring is here. Even if I still have to wear layers. And have the heat on. And can't open the windows yet. But it's here.

Proof of winter

View from back door

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't find any mushrooms today.
What I really wanted to title this post was, "Kill me now", but I didn't want to attract the wrong kind of attention.

One last Lion’s Mane mushroom, a big one

A last hurrah of the season, found in mid-November (I say “last hurrah” because all rain stopped in mid-September…the woods here dried up into a crunchy, dead-leaf desert).

Here was my first glimpse of it, me standing right on the trail—I thought, “What is that, a rock?” It was near a bluff, with lots of chunks of chert around. Could have been a rock. But as I got closer, the color became more alive and somehow translucent.

Nov. 13, 2010

I say “right on the trail” in italics, for emphasis, because lots of people hike in this park, and I can’t believe my luck about what I find when I’m just poking along on the trail, not even crashing through the underbrush. People either don’t see stuff, or are disinterested, or say, “Ew, gross”, or I don’t know what. I’m just saying that one does not have to go deep into dark forests to find mushrooms. Because mushrooms are everywhere.

This was the biggest one I’d found this year, growing in a kind of funny low spot so its bottom edges were actually smooshed against the ground (usually they’re higher up a tree. Often maddeningly out of reach).

     

Below, I’ve thrust my pocket knife into it triumphantly. Regular readers may remember that my open pocket knife is 5-3/8” long, since I use it so often to indicate scale, and constantly mention its size.



Something a little gruesome about that shot (above)



Nothing gruesome about THIS one, though, in my opinion. But, I know what these TASTE like, so to me it is beautiful.



Above, the base, showing the cool moist spongy interior, after I'd cut it off the tree. You can see the knife marks where I sawed away at it. Oh, and to add to the fun, it squeaks when you cut it.

I’d say it was a bit bigger than an average human brain.

I cut it off the tree and it was perfect and I gave half of it to a pal and that still left enough for me to lightly gorge myself on—a big serving, the kind where you know if you eat more, you’ll feel a little stuffed, in a lovely, indulgent sort of way. Man, just looking at that image makes my mouth water, I can smell it, in my mind! Like the freshest chilled scallops and lobster you can imagine.

Helpful hint: whenever I collect these I put them in their own plastic bag (even if I've already got other edibles collected), to keep them as clean as possible, minimizing junk getting caught in the soft hairy spines. The less I have to cut off and discard, the better, because every possible edible morsel of these is worth it.