Tue - January 25, 2005

"Shaft"


Who's the baddest of them all? We found this gorgeous black-skinned mushroom in a hilly wooded area in the East Bay. After combing through Arora and Simon and Schuster, we came up empty. Does anyone have any idea what it might be?

Date: January 2005
Nearest city: Berkeley, CA
Local climate: Sparse woodland, hillside
Location: Amidst the leaves
Recent weather: One week after several weeks of rain

As we tramped through a shady but sparsely treed hillside, we stumbled across these black beauties. Since we'd been finding the black elfin saddle (Helvella lacunosa) all over the place on the same day, I initially thought I was finding large versions of the same. An only slightly closer inspection revealed that I was being silly -- other than the black color, they're totally different.

These mushrooms have deeply bladed gills and a smooth stalk. The skin is a glossy black.











We took one home for further study. Upon getting it on the table for closer inspection, we noticed that the flesh of the stipe is quite fibrous, and splits apart quite easily. Furthermore, the flesh of the mushroom is greyish-white, with the black color limited to the outermost "skin". The gills are quite "tall" (they go up all the way to the skin on the cap) and are the same gray-white in color, except for the edges, which are black. The flesh has a tendency to stain yellow, especially in the cap.




We tried working a few keys but came up empty. If you know what this mushroom is, feel free to drop me a line.

Posted at 10:02 AM    

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