September 18th, 2007
Mushroom Observer
Here’s something that might be of interest to those who enjoy studying and photographing fungi. The Mushroom Observer is a citizen science type website where participants can post their observation records and photos of fungi. I’ve just had a very brief tour of the site, but it looks very good. As soon as I have a bit of spare time (ha!), I’ll try to post a few of my records and images. One nice feature that seems very useful is a means of posting “unknowns” so that others may help with identification. I have a couple of fungi that definitely fall into that category, so must give that a try. I would think that the Mushroom Observer has the potential to be to fungi, what Bugguide.net is to insects. Anyhow, I hope the site will be of interest to some of you.
September 18th, 2007 at 9:33 am
I was just browsing some edible mushroom websites before visiting your blog and finding this post, nice coincidence :-)
I’ll be bookmarking that website, thanks for the heads up.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Hey Bev!! Popping in to say hello! (I had a really busy summer). Gorgeous mushrooms!! I would so be a mushroom hunter and cooker upper, but my husband will Not Let Me. I’m flying to the mushroom website, I’m nuts about mushrooms. Happy day!! Celeste
September 18th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Hi Bev! Popping in to say hi! What gorgeous mushrooms! I would so be a mushroom hunter and cooker upper but my husband will Not Let Me–he’s sure I will poison myself. Thanks for the link to the shroom website! I hope you had a great summer. I’m really excited for shroom season with my new camera. The past few years have been kinda no-shows for mushrooms, and this year we’re supposed to get wetter, hopefully they’ll be ready to be extravagant! PS, I looked at your slime mold tree trunk photos on the mushroom site, we have something like that here, it’s just like Elmers Glue when you poke it!
September 18th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
We’ll definitely peruse that site. Thanks for the link. We see a lot of mushrooms around here and often hunt for ways to ID them. We have several mushroom guides, but a good online one is most welcome.
September 18th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Mmmmm, lucious looking aren’t they? What a great pic.
September 18th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
What a great picture Bev, very photogenic fungi.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
I’m always eager to find helpful ID sites–thanks!
Those shrooms are pretty ones!
September 19th, 2007 at 12:28 am
Great Pholiota shot, Bev! That genus may be more common in northern regions than it is here, as I don’t encounter fruitings very often here in Missouri.
Thanks for posting a link to the new mushroom site. Another site with much ‘shroom information and an active message board is:
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/index.html
September 19th, 2007 at 5:42 am
Thanks for passing along the link! It looks like a great site. I really like your photo here too !!!
September 19th, 2007 at 7:02 am
Celeste – Great to “see” you! I’ve checked in at your blog from time to time and read about how busy you were. Just read your post on summer flowers. I have to say that I’m not very comfortable about eating the wild shrooms found around here other than a couple that can’t be mistaken for anything else (the giant Puffballs being one of them). Some start out looking like one mushroom, but then gradually begin to reveal their themselves and you think, “Yikes! That’s not what I thought it was!” (-:
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robin – I’ve just had a small peruse through the Mushroom Observer, but did notice that some of the main contributors seem to be from California or the PNW, so you may find it to be quite a helpful site. As Larry has mentioned in his comment, MushroomExpert.com is also a very good site.
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gypsy – Thanks! It was so cool to find that row of little mushrooms when I looked beneath the log. A great surprise!
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Duncan – Thanks! Yes, aren’t they very photogenic? The way they were growing, it looked like they were lined up on a stage ready to perform!
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Nina – I’m always looking for more good websites for IDing flora and fauna, so always nice to come across another good one.
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Larry – I think Pholiota might be relatively common up here. My fungus field guide for eastern Canada (by George Barron of Guelph University) contains photos of 8 fairly commonly found Pholiota, so I guess they are easier to come by up here.
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OW – Thanks! Yes, it does seem like a great site. I like the interactiveness of it. I tried inputting some observations and photos yesterday and it worked quite well. I have more fungus photos, so I’ll have to add some more observations when I have time. Also hoping to see plenty of shrooms when I’m out west in October, so the site will probably be helpful for IDs.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:02 am
shut up you sack of anal potatoes