Comox Valley Nature

From an email by Jocie to the Botany Group on November 24. Click a photo to enlarge it.

Here are photos of a lovely red/pink coral fungus that I think you will all enjoy. The below message and photos are from Sandra P.

I am a volunteer and key contact for the Roy Creek Salmonid Enhancement Society. I came across this fungus this morning while at our fish hatchery for Roy Creek. This fungus was near the water source by the spring. Can you tell me what it is — very pretty. First I thought it was a pom pom on the ground but with a stick I poked gently and broke 2 pieces, realizing that it’s a fungus. Is it rare? poisonous?

This is a coral fungus in the genus Ramaria. There are a few species it could be…hard to determine without microscopic work and chemical tests according to Alison M. Could be R. araiospora or R. stunzii. Not toxic, but not a desired edible. Less common than the beige and yellow ramarias.

From an email by Jocie distributed to the Botany Group on November 12. Click a photo to enlarge it.

Some fungi are appearing, though so scarce compared to a “typical year”—whatever that is! Here are a few photos sent in by Douglas P. and Kim D.

1. The classic fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) from Douglas’s yard in east Courtenay. One of the most iconic mushrooms, with good reason!

2. Rounded earth stars (Geastrum saccatum). This is truly one of the strangest fungi around…it looks like a miniature plastic rocket launcher. Kim found these on a walk to the Morrison Creek Headwaters with the CV Land Trust. We’ll explore this area with the botany group sometime.

3. The fir-cone mushroom (Strobilurus trullisatus) is turning up everywhere right now, look out for it on Douglas-fir cones.

This report by Alison M. was distributed to the Botany Group by Jocie on November 5. Click a photo to enlarge it.

In the last week of October we have been into three locations in the Park in the hopes that the recent rains have awakened the fruiting bodies of some fungi—Mckenzie Lake and Meadows on the 23rd (on Sunday to avoid the logging operations along Murex Main), Divers Lake on the 26th (where the gate was open!!) and Elk River Trail on the 28th.

There has been enough moisture, especially on the trails along Highway 28 that benefit from the weather coming in from the west coast inlets. However, not a single chanterelle—their look-alikes yes, namely the ubiquitous wooly pine spike Chroogomphus tomentosus (photo 1) and false chanterelle Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca, golden on the cap, bright orange on the underside (photo 2), and also the scaly chanterelle Turbinellus floccosus (photo 3).

We did find the unusual so-called blue/black chanterelle—Polyozellus atrolazulinus—on the ERT, a little past its best, with some hypomyces, but the general form and the veining on the underside are still clear. (photos 4 & 5).

On all the trails, clusters of the honey mushroom Armillaria mellea group were prolific. Most of the examples would be Armillaria ostoyae that parasitizes conifers ( photos 6, 7, 8)—the clusters of large shroom with obvious veil ring, scaly on top can be a whole range of browns. The spore print is white as can bee seen in photo 8.

Apart from the Polyozellus on the ERT, stunning was the Stropharia aeruginosa (iNat gives verdigris agaric as the common name), which when young has a cap like blue porcelain (photos 9 and 10). Distinctive features of the Stropharia genus include the very wooly surface of the stipe, and when the cap opens some of the wooly particles cling to the rim of the cap in a fringe.