This formation looks like it might have a white mold on its top that covers the mushroom-like protrusion. When cut, the "cap" is rusty red inside of the white layer, as if it might be an outgrowth of the main bulbous form underneath, as opposed to a manifestation of the white mold layer. The flesh of the bulbous portion is firm. See photos. Thanks!
No. The portion covered in debris was in the litter/detritus on the forest floor, so perhaps the bottom 2 inches or so. There were some decaying wood fragments, reddish in color, perhaps cedar, attached to the "root". The first photo is before I harvested the specimen. Here are a few more photos. Part of the cap-shaped tip broke off, and so you can see the cross-section of the "cap." There do not appear to be any gills. Very strange, the weirdest fungus I've seen so far in three years of foraging up here.
I tried posting with some more photos, but it doesn't show up. So: No, only the portion with debris attached was in the ground, which was thick evergreen duff. After doing a bit of research in Arora's Mushrooms Demystified, I think that this might be some kind of puffball or earthstar, but it doesn't really match any of the descriptions and I can't key it out.
No, there was no odor. David Fischer (http://AmericanMushrooms.com/) thinks it may be an oddball Cortinarius; he noticed incipient gills in one of the photos of the cap. He mentioned how the spores would look under a microscope if he was right, but 1)I don't have a microscope, although I might be able to use one at my college, and 2)I may have picked it before any spores formed.
I see lots of similar mushrooms in the Vancouver area, typically a bolete infected from the top by a white mold. The mold stunts the top growth while the base continues to grow, producing the form shown in the photos.
We found many infected boletes with engorged stems last week and the week before in the Squamish and Whistler area. All of the ones last week appeared to be B. mirabilis. So I think infected Cort makes sense yes if it appears to have been a rusty spore producer. Interesting! Seems to be fruitful year for this sort of thing. - frog
