Autumn Watch

Wow and Wow!!!! Really fantastic photos. I especially love the raindrops caught on the dandelion.

Both sets of photos are wonderful. I was down in Brighton yesterday (only took a quick photo of the Marina - hardly, seasonal) and I am up on Suffolk tomorrow so I will see if I can take a few "seasonal" snaps then - but don't hold ya breath!. :unsure:
 
Your last toadstool is one of the puffball species, Dims, and looks most likely to be Calvatia Excipuliformis: one of the commonest puffballs, usually found in grassy places on light sandy soils and is pale yellow-brown, more or less pestle-shaped, and covered with tiny spines and warts. The fun to be had with them is to gently squeeze the tops and watch them puff out their spores with a gentle 'ffffttt'! 8-12 x 3-5 cm. Autumn, and EDIBLE! :)

The chappie at the top is lovely! I couldn't find a precise match for it, but it looks most like Melanoleuca Meleleuca, although the piccy in the Collins doesn't show it making quite such a defined bowl. It is a little beaut, and if it is MM, it's also edible. Apparently, there are several variations on the Melanoleuca theme, so it could fit in with the genre. Common to pastures and woodlands of all types, variable in colouration but usually has a dark chocolate brown cap with pronounced white gills and a tall white, fibrous stem. 5-8 x 4 x 10cm.
 
I have been informed that the brown one is Lycoperdon perlatum.
The first one, the delicate one is Coprinus lagopus. This one is definitely inedible!
It's amazing what you can find out on a fungi forum! :lol:
 
The coprinuses (coprini?) I have in the Collins are quite differently-shaped, Dims, as they have pointy tops. Can you give me the link to the fungusite, please? I want to identify a whole load of fungi and 'stools at Lingfield which have sproinged up after the rains. A lot appear to be edible, and I quite fancy some stir-fried!
 
In the first piccy, the mushroom's bonnet has started to turn upwards, which is what they do in this species. It's a sign of age. :blink: So I have been told.

Here you go Krizon, here is the link to the most informative Wildlife site on the web. Its a fantastic forum, full of ' experts' and the most amazing wildlife photos you will ever see.

WAB
 
Brian told me on another thread to crawl under my toadstool. So instead of watching all the glorious racing I went out to find a toadstool I could live with!

I found these and they will do....................

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Not sure how long I will last, these are Amanita muscaria..............Fly Agaric and very poisonous!!!! I expect Dr Honest will help me.
 
Cheers for the website, Dims. I love these - the gnomes' very own little stools! Sadly, I've never seen any real, live ones. We had plenty of fairy rings at Brighton and there are some monster growths at Lingfield which I might collect to take home to i.d. One of my colleagues was highly pissed off, as someone indicated 'masses' of edible mushrooms on the golf course there, but when he went to collect some, they'd all been snaffled. I have collected wild mushrooms before and pan-fried them, and they are wonderful.
 
I can remember sampling some wild mushrooms many years ago, though they were raw. I don't remember much about what happened afterwards for a while...
 
A few of my friends gave that a go one evening. Made a mushroom tea and whilst they sat there sipping their tea and watching the news the newsreader turned into a lion.............so they said. :blink:
 
Really nice photo's DIM... either you have sore knees if shooting through a MACRO lense or you have a good ZOOM lense......but yes very nice... I have a pro MINOLTA 8000 SLR. with all the lenses too its a convential camera not digital, I normally take my pocket digital camera with me now..... ;)
 
Amazing trip for me, nearly 20 years ago now. A friend who grew his own weed and regularly harvested the magic mushies brewed a bunch up, which we had in our coffee. As he'd tripped a lot of times previously on them, he was compos mentis enough to more or less talk me through the stages - which lasted 6.5 hours or 77777777777 years, which is what it seemed to be at the time.

I LOVED seeing teeny, neon-coloured letters swirling and whirling on the perfectly white kitchen paper, the clockface that couldn't be read as the numbers constantly moved and the hands went backward, and my stereo system turning (with its bright lights) into a cute, miniature version of New York by night. I got fritzed out when my pal suddenly crouched down to do something, though, and yelled that he had turned into a black dwarf - at 6' 4", that took some doing. Wonderful stuff, but a bit heavy for the first time around. The second one was a much lighter brew and turned the autumn leaves on the ground into irridescent, smiling lips... :blink:
 
:lol: :lol: Love it: Kenco Extra Trips!

You just get yourself a bunch o' Liberty Caps, Dims: dry them out, then pour boiling water over them later when you want the after-dinner coffees to liven up ye olde dinner party. Now is the time to harvest and dry them. I wouldn't recommend more than perhaps a dozen for starters, though - just enough to make things fun and wear off quickly enough, without incapacitating your guests and having them running around going 'oooh, look at all the lovely colours!', 'omigod, my hand's strobing' or watching the chairs pulsating for the rest of the night! :blink:
 
I was at a friend's party a good few years back in a restaurant. Some of the lads had clearly been on the mushroom cake & cider before arriving. One of them lost it completely and ended up standing on one of the tables screaming that the dustbin in the restaurant kitchen was after him. It was quite funny to start with but after a while he worked himself into a bit of a state and he left. I was quite worried about him. I was assured the affect would soon wear off and he would be back for his dinner. He was found by his mates the next morning in a big park opposite the restaurant, where he had gone to sleep for the night - it was only about 9pm when he left the restaurant. He was OK, but had it been colder goodness knows what may have happened to him. He was full of apologies when we next saw him and vowed never to touch the mushrooms again, although he was convinced the vast quantities of cider he had consumed may have had something to do with it too.
 
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