Stu and I were picking flowers for ma mamán, and I noticed something I had seen earlier; a veritable toad. stool. out in the yard. This thing looked like it'd support my weight!Quote:
You can be a bold mushroom hunter,
and you can be an old mushroom hunter,
the only thing is, you can't be a bold old mushroom hunter.
You guys know my tendancies towards experimenting, trying new things, and learning, so I picked it (yes!), and pretended to offer it to my parents with the flowers.
Of course, my parents didn't get to be 51/53 years old by trying any old wild mushroom they saw, so I left it outside and told stu to go wash his hands. I took my laptop outside, loaded up a few field guides and started searching.
Excellent! This thing looked like it might be a delicious macrolepiota procera! But I wanted to be certain, so I continued reading, checking to see if M. procera had any deadly twins. I had learned in my last mushroom research extravaganza that some of these are very hard to tell apart, and m. procera had a few traits that mine didn't seem to share. For one, it didn't have a snakeskin pattern, and the inside of the cap was orange..
Turns out there is a look-alike called chlorophyllum molybdites. And though I was loathe to believe it, it had more in common with mine than the tasty M. Procera. The spores appeared to be green, where m. procera is white, it was located in the middle of grass, while m. procera likes to live on dead things and you know, decompose them.
And I sighed with chagrin, tossed the unfortunate cap and stem into the bushes, and returned to tell you on the internet my tale of mycinology.
if I find any psilocybin, I'll alert you guys.
