With as warm and dry the winter has been....I'm still amazed at how many mushrooms and fungi I'm still finding. My first Gymnopolis mushrooms........found in a cow pasture on fallen wood were a great find. Also a great find, two years in a row now, were the large Scarlet Cup fungi, Sarcoscypha coccinea. Normally these are only found in the spring to very early summer in the Mid-west...but I've found these from mid-winter to mid-summer 2 years now. On a foray this past spring, members of my KAW Valley mushroom hunting group found a yellow variety of this fungi growing on Ft.Leavenworth property.
Any idea which Gymnopilus? The odor of Gymnopilus luteus & spectabilis is one of my most favorite smells in the world ...
My local group thinks it may be the G. spectabilis. I don't have a microscope so am not able to make exact ID's sometimes. These are a GORGEOUS mushroom...the colors are fabulous! And your right...they smell almost delicious!
The largest I've found so far was as wide as the wood plank it was growing on.....almost 4 inches....HUGE! I saw the colors from a distance before I realized I was looking at mushrooms. The ones in the photo though, weren't as large....only about 2 1/2 to 3 across.
I found some last year on a dying (hawthorne?) tree. They were huge, some five and six inches across. Made a huge mess with rusty brown spores. Maybe three or four pounds on the one tree. Very bitter tasting. Ate a fair amount after drying them. Very relaxing. Kavalactones is what I remember about it. This year, (last week) despite record rains fruits were small and few. You never know what you'll find on lawns in the Uplands.
I'm thinking these don't fit the bill for G. spectabilis - I just don't see the ring on the upper stem that I usually see with spectabilis or the slightly smaller and slightly more solid-yellowish G. luteus. These are definitely too small to be G. ventricosus. This fall, Gary Lincoff ID'd some G. validipes, which looked very similar to the ones pictured here. I realize that validipes usually has a swollen stem, but those did not. Just throwing in my two cents, I find myself with a lot of change these days.
I won't bother taste testing these.......my friends said they were definately bitter and that was good enuf for me. :o) I've NO idea about the Gym species........I've never found any til this time. Most of these were growing on fallen boards from an old barn that's been there almost 100 years. These popped up right after a snow fall.....growing among mary j..........would any of this make a difference about color/texture/rings/size? The ones since have all been smaller and darker. Almost red at times.......many with a greenish caste to them.
I think without the KOH or other 'scientific' means to test...I'll probably not get a positive ID for this grouping. The green colors and textured caps now are what might help just for visual ID'ing. The Gymnopilus liquiritiae definately LOOKS like it? I wonder if my area of KS would be considered 'Southern' however....as the description states it grows off of Pine and other evergreens..........we have almost no trees here large enuf to have made all the wood for the barn remains these were found on......but hardwoods in the Southern states.
I find there's a few species in my area that have hit this 'stump'....... I've still a snow-growing mushroom with a pinkish/peach spore that hasn't been ID'd yet either. I've had people use chemicals and look at spore under the microscope with no luck yet. It's wonderful to find 'new' things.....just frustrating when I can't get a name for them. lol Thanx everyone for the help here!
