Mushrooms in the town

It rained most of the day on Friday. It hadn't been like this for months. But even this rain could not end the drought. Only the top layer of soil is soaked, with very little water in the deeper layers. Many trees have died of thirst. But fungi respond quickly to the invigorating rain. On 20 August it rained for the first time in a quarter of a year. Two weeks was enough for the fungi. One after another, the fruiting bodies of the species appeared. Fortunately, more rain is coming! September gives mushrooms to hungry mushroomers, including me. Of course, I couldn't help myself and grabbed the big camera and went around my urban mushrooming route, which is a good ten kilometres. The first picture is of pavement mushroom Agaricus bitorquis, which has the characteristic of pushing up the ground and therefore always has a dirty hat. This is a well-known fungus. Another important feature is that it has a double ring. It's a tasty mushroom, but I don't pick mushrooms in the city because of all the dirt, I just take photos.

I also found a toadstool, Agaricus iodosmus, which I was very happy about, because I had been looking for it for a long time. It's an important fungus, because it looks good and tasty, but it's sneaky. It gives you a nasty upset stomach if you eat it. As you can see in the picture, where I touched it, it turned yellow. The typical mushroom odor of Agaricus was overpowered by the chemical smell. This is an important property of poisonous Agaricus species. I turned over a single fruiting body for photography. I did not touch the others. It's silly to kick up poisonous toadstools, because they don't hurt anyone if they don't eat them.

It was Leucoagaricus, it wasn't Agaricus. In fact they are very similar, both belonging to the order Agaricaceae family. However, the genus Leucoagaricus has a creamy white spore while the Agaricus has a dark brown one. I didn't have to turn the fruiting body inside out to recognise it. This is a well-known fungus to me. I took a picture. I like to take habitat photos. The unity of the mushroom and its environment is so reassuring. One of the wonders of nature is that after it rains, mushrooms appear. Where there was nothing, there are mushrooms everywhere. I've loved this since I was a kid.

As a child, I was fascinated by the fact that food could grow along the road. The fourth picture is of an edible mushroom, the hat of which you eat after you're sure you've recognised it. This is the poplar fieldcap Cyclocybe cylindracea, one of my favourite mushrooms. Its English name refers to its favourite food. And indeed it is most often found on the remains of dead poplar trees. It has a good odor. I can feel it from far away when it is brought to me. In Hungary, almost every market where mushrooms are sold has a fungi inspector. I'll be working on Sunday, so it's time for bed. I'm sure the shroomers will bring lots of mushrooms.