The Weather Channel was clear in its forecast: A monster weather pattern would soon be arriving in the Pacific Northwest, dumping several inches of rain onto our drought-ridden lands and whipping the landscape with winds gusting as high as 100 mph. Time to batten down the hatches!
Knowing that the remnants of typhoon Songda were heading our direction, we made a quick foray into the refuge to see what had been happening since our last outing.
As we approached a young conifer at the beginning of our walk, we spied a fallen turkey vulture feather clinging to its young, tender branches. Later, a California Sister darted gracefully from one side of the path to the other and eventually skyward through an opening in the oak trees, most assuredly not to be viewed again until next spring.
A feather lay on a young conifer that had been
dwarfed by deer nibbling on its new growth.
Not too surprisingly, there were no edible fungi to be found; the short rains we'd experienced lately had not brought sufficient moisture to awaken the ground. Still, the forest floor was alive; it was as if every pine cone was host to a fruiting of the seemingly inconsequential Strobilurus trullisatus. Their whitish caps were simply carpeting every surface and creating a lovely panorama.
These delicate Collybia created a magical carpet
on the forest floor!
Fascinated by this prolific fruiting of Strobilurus trullisatus, we decided to include a little write up about it in this post, gleaning information from three of our most trusted sources: Steve Trudell and Joe Ammirati's Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest, Michael Wood's www.MykoWeb, and David Arora's Mushrooms Demystified.
Here are some facts/observations of this often-unnoticed mushroom:
Preferred growing medium?
- Overwhelmingly Douglas fir cones are its favorite substrate, although it is known to grow occasionally on other conifers.
- Don't be fooled by the fact that the mushrooms may appear to be growing out of the duff. Gently lift up a group of the mushrooms, bringing along some of the litter underneath the stems, and almost certainly there will be a buried cone in there somewhere.
Appearance?
- Caps: Broadly convex to flat and sometimes slightly depressed, dry surface, whitish in color often with pink tones, .4-1.7 cm across with a thin white flesh. Remember: 1 cm = approximately 3/8 inch.
- Gills: Closely spaced, adnate to adnexed, white to pinkish buff in color.
- Stalk: Thin, 1.5-4.5 cm tall, 0.1-0.2 cm broad, grading from whitish at the apex to yellowish to brownish in the lower portions and evidencing yellow-brown to orange hairs at the base, veil absent.
- Spore print: White.
Edible?
- Arora asks: "Who knows? Who cares?" Truthfully, its size is so small that it would be almost impossible for the usual forager to collect enough for a suitable serving, so determining edibility seems almost absurd.
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Granted, on its own, Strobilurus trullisatus may seem somewhat inconsequential. Perhaps its true value is that it's one more fungal "friend" that we regularly encounter, and now can recognize, and that adds richness to the forest floor.