April fungi (visual story in 22 photos)

Hola, setero! Long time no seen. I was not visiting fungi-licious areas but recently (on the last day of April, and then in the 1st week of June) my wife and I came to check our countryside house, so I can share with you some fresh mushroom impressions I brought from this trip. I did have some fungi encounters - expected and not at all.

This capture was taken at the end of April, when the nights were still quite cold and not much greenery have popped up around. But the hungry ones have already hatched from their eggs and crawled out of their winter holes - and the very first mushrooms, as you see in the photo, already became someone’s lunch! I suspect it was the work of snails (most likely).

On a sidewalk log I found a young colony of Schizophyllum commune, a very wide-spread and common fungus, which - strangely enough - I dont photograph a lot. I had a nice lighting and took a series of pictures....

While I was staring at the fungus, three ants came in to forage the area...

Those ants were so quirky ... hard to focus properly, so I did not got much; besides that - nothing intresting have happened. But look at the textures and magnification, just technically - isnt it a nice result?

This was an ordinary little ant, 3-4mm length, and it provides a good scale for estimating the size of fungi sprouts.

---

I noticed the last year's puffball, who already puffed out and distributed all of his spores:

---

A whole family has clung to a small stump - perhaps these are edible summer honey mushrooms!

The following below photos belong to the second - i.e. June - trip.

Several Unknown Fungi Objects (UFO-s) popped up at our strawberry bed; they have characteristic coil around the stem, but I really wasnt into identifying them - no doubts they dont belong to the forageable type.

---

In the middle of a big stump, deep in the crack - I discovered a fungi hideout! ...

This is a very characteristic fungi, its not the 1st time I encounter it (but each time at a new spot! - so I can deduce it is very virulent... easy-travelling, mobile non-stop changing its area fungus. Quite suspicious, isnt it?)

It is tiny, and always pop-up as a whole family. The name is: Wolf's milk, or Lycogala epidendrum. During its growing phase the fungus is bright pink; after the spores have matured - the pink color is gone, fungus becomes bleak pale brown. What else I can add? keep away from it, dont try to finger it to see if it will produce a funny 'pfff' or not. There are some serious scientific theories (well: just hypotheses, to be precise), claiming that this fungus may be related to one-time metastases in the human body. I wouldn't shrug off such a warning... it's better to be warned and stay frosty. Stay away from such a fungi.

---

And now - the most amazing and memorable part of my fungi encounters: Boleto!

Well, actually this happened later, not in April but at the very beginning of June.

The mushroom is quite common: it is an edible Léccinum scábrum. Amazing thing is the early time of its arrival. Boleto's mycelium always take more time to mature, usually theay appear only in July and have a peak from August to September; my guess it is two extremely hot weeks of May (topped with massive rains) to blame for this anomaly.

We were very surprised to find this Big Boleto... and of course it was not alone - very soon I found #2, and then #3.

And - no surprise now - I was not the first one who found it, hehe. As usual...

A huge slug was sitting on it comfortably and having his lunch. I let him escape safely, after taking a few shots. At least he posed me so well - it was the least I could do for him. But lets face the truth - this is no way a useful habitant of your garden, quite on the contrary...

What happened with three mushrooms? you did not ask but I tell you: we ate it! They were a bit eaten by the worms too, but damn, these were the first boleto of the season and I did not want to throw them away! I put them into a salt water (after soaking for 20 mins the worms prefer to leave the fungus body), and my wife prepared a very tasty and aroma potato stew. (Sorry, have no photos of the actual dish).

---

And that is all! On this note let me round up the post. Hope you enjoyed the visuals - see you next time. 😘

A little advertisement: in Fungi Lovers community share your foraging stories and trophies, photos and recipes, identification questions, contemplations and ideas. If you are not sure about correct ID (which allows us to find out more about certain fungus), no problem, feel no fear - fungi are full of weird alien charm we can adore even nameless. We appreciate them not only for their cooking values!

_{This header was created by @riverflows}