August Showers Bring Mushrooms

               I’ve known for years that mushrooms grow in the rain. I’ve enjoyed looking for them—their  different forms and colors and their unpredictable appearance.  At one time, I used to pick up mushrooms samples when I hiked through woods in late summer and early fall. I’d categorize them with The Mushroom Handbook, dried the ones that cooperated, and placed them, with moss, into little arrangements in jars.  Even when I’ve been 99 percent certain that no poisonous mushroom resembled what I picked up, I never ate any. I’m not that daring.

                Two days ago, thing one and thing two poked their tiny caps up from the soil between the street and sidewalk in front of my next door neighbor’s house.  Then it rained.  And they grew, and grew. Now it’s impossible to walk by without noticing them—graceful and creamy white, with a little frill on their stems. Their mushroom caps measure a glorious 10 inches—dinner plate size!

                But these beauties should never find their way onto a dinner place.  Consulting the MycoKey fungus identifier, http://www.mycokey.org  (isn’t it fantastic how much you can find out on the Internet?) I confirmed suspicions gleaned from my trusty Mushroom Handbook. My neighbor’s mushroom are indeed amanitas.  In fact, they are Warted Amanitas (Amanita Strobiliformis) and most likely poisonous. But don’t they make a pretty picture?