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Random

· 12TH OF MARCH, THE YEAR 2006

STILL AT IT

It’s hard to see weather like this out your window and stay inside, so, despite rain in the forecast and a host of niggling obligations (most of them to myself), I headed once again for Briones. Flowers are really starting to show up in the north bay and on the peninsula, so I figured on owl clover and shooting stars and fiddlenecks etc, but spring has not yet sprung quite so much here in the east bay. However, there were mushrooms galore!

Springtime amanita (Amanita velosa)
Amanitas might be my favorite mushrooms. I don’t know if it’s their staggering beauty or their potential lethality that intrigues me, but the few that I’ve found so far have all impressed me. A. velosa here might be my favorite so far, with its pale gold metalic sheen, white skull cap, and picture perfect volva. It’s also supposed to be delicious, but due to its similarity in appearance and seasonality to its deadly close relative, the destroying angel (Amanita ocreata), I didn’t take any home to try. See everybody? I’m still sane. Though, I admit it was hard to resist. There were a ton of these growing under a single oak!

Fluted white elfin saddle?
This looks an awful lot like Helvella crispa, but it’s supposed to be exceedingly rare in California, so I’m not sure. It was growing under an oak / bay mix.

Alien goo!
I have absolutely no idea what this stuff is. I assume it’s a fungus, but what kind? I found it under a rotting hardwood log, where most of life’s fun is to be had.

Dung bell (Panaeolus papilionaceus)
It grows on crap! And that’s where I saw it, amongst a bunch of old cow pats.

Blue dicks (Dichelostemma capitatum)
I lied, there were a few flowers, just not many. Blue dicks are very common, but still beautiful, and this was my first of the year.