Some are so tiny (like pinheads so I couldn't get good shots) and then you'll see one of the monster mushes we found with Rachel's hand in the picture for scale. Those grow next to the house every year under an oak. It's great fun to go looking for them all. So many kinds!! I didn't count the number of varieties, but there were more than a dozen, for sure. There are new discoveries each season, so far.
As I mentioned in the T-Day post, we have a big mushroom-ID book, but it's still almost impossible to be sure which are which--too much similarity. There are some that, we were pretty sure, were edible, even delicious ("choice" in the book), but were not brave (or dumb) enough to put them to the ultimate test. The huge ones were labeled as "choice", we think. A few days later, they were completely gone--eaten by deer. My guess is that they were, indeed, quite delicious, since I found not one sick deer anywhere in the yard.
The winds have dried many of them out, now, and the big season is over until late spring, when it warms up enough. Still, I walk slowly, eyes to the ground, scanning for more more more. I think it will take a big snow event to break my little obsession.
Wish I was a better photographer, but here's the best I could do with these marvelous little fungi (mag up on these to get the best view)...
