This morning, I packed a bit of a lunch, loaded the dogs in the car and drove up to meet up with my brother Salvelinas in a forest an hour or so from home. Salvelinas is very knowledgeable when it come to mushrooms and when it comes to trees and other forest plant too. I always learn something when I spend a day in the woods with him.

Today we saw a number of unusual mushrooms.

I’ve seen the big vase-shaped mushrooms  before, always in the same forest. I haven’t figured out what they are yet. If these mushrooms are familiar to you, please contact me or comment.

We observed many species today, but best of all, we picked a couple good baskets of mushrooms that included Hypomyces latifluorum (lobsters), Hydnum umbilicatum (hedgehogs), and Hypsizygus ulmarius (the so-called elm oyster).

Here’s two other interesting finds. The first is a nice specimen of the Northern Tooth (Climacodon septentrionale) growing on a mature maple.

I saw a couple examples of these when I was up in Muskoka recently. The other unusual fungi we saw were white elfin saddle, Helvella crispa. This is the first time I’ve seen these odd looking items.

As usual, we also came across some specimens we couldn’t identify with casual observation, so I have three mushrooms set up for spore prints tonight.

I also have the dehydrator going, drying a load of lobster mushrooms for winter. I had a very enjoyable day.