Summary of Coeymans Hollow walk - Saturday June 24th.
Although it was dry, I think most if not everyone enjoyed the walk in the McDonald's woods. There weren't many fresh mushroom flushes but we managed to find 10 species, some specimens were a bit old. A couple highlights of the walk included some nice fruitings of Ganoderma tsugae on various down hemlock trees and stumps, a yet to be identified bolete protruding from a hump of moss thatwas very photogenic (except my iphone pictures came out blurry), and toward the end of the walk, a couple people were able to pick enough chanterelles for a meal. Carol ended the event in her usual style with a strawberry rhubarb pie, but not before everyone enjoyed some venison stew and fresh garden salad. Following lunch, we toured the gardens and George Johanssen was,as always, helpful in pointing outthe edible wild plants set against the backdrop of vegetables and flowers.
The post walk activities put most people behind schedule and the identification was left to George and me. The unidentified bolete turned out to be Tylopilus felleus, aka the Bitter Bolete. It matched all of the characteristics described in the guidebook including the bitter taste. We collected specimens of a gilled mushroom growing from wood that was a bit confusing due to the uncertainty of the gill attachment. Was it Pluteus cervinus (Fawn or Deer mushroom) or Tricholomopis platphylla (Platterful mushroom)? George and I agreed to disagree until a spore print was obtained. In the meantime, Bill Bakatis suggested I look at the gills to see whether there were cystidia with distinct horn-like projections. So I sliced thin sections of gill, prepared a slide and used the new microscope for the second time. Not only did I not see cystidia like what Bill described, I could barely find what looked
like a spore. I did see lots of basidia-like projections, but no spores? I didn't put it together until the next day when I checked for the spore print color and there were no spores under the cap. So it is more likely that this was T. platphylla that had already released its spores. Below is a list of the mushrooms we found. Some we only identified to genus.
Russula sp.
Cortinarius sp.
Cantharellus cibarius - Chanterelle
Tylopilus felleus - Bitter Bolete
Ganoderma tsugae - Hemlock Reshi
Unidentified bracket fungi
Amanita sp.
Tricholomopis platphylla - Platterful mushroom
Suillus pictus - Painted Bolete
Fuligo septica - scrambled egg slime
I originally included a collage of the walk pictures in the report, but Kelly and I had issues with formats and file sizes so we had to drop it. I know others took pictures during the walk and I think it would be nice if we had a way for individuals to share some of their better pictures with the group (other than facebook which has its own issues), but I don't know how to do this. If anyone has any ideas and has time to manage this, let me know and let’s see what we can work out.
There was a bit of rain here on Monday, but we clearly need more. Nevertheless, try to get out for a walk in the woods every chance you can, it renews the spirit. Until next time......
Gerry