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Making Friends with Fungi 101

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    Making Friends with Fungi 101

    The Simon & Shuster Guide to Mushrooms are also good and fun guides.

    Inside your guide you should find (look for this before you buy the guide) some definitions of various terms used to describe the characteristics of mushrooms, such as this (from Mushrooms: A Quick Reference Guide to Mushrooms of North AmericaPsilocybin Mushrooms of the World
    Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.


    #2
    Re: Making Friends with Fungi 101

    Wow...that was so cool to read! Thanks for sharing this Corbin
    Great Grandmother's Kitchen

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      #3
      Re: Making Friends with Fungi 101

      Thanks, DeseretRose - I remembered that you were interested, and I figured that there would be others interested as well!

      It's a good excuse to get out and wander around in the woods or fields, even if you don't eat any of the mushrooms that you find.
      Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

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        #4
        Re: Making Friends with Fungi 101

        fantastic post!!
        Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
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          #5
          Re: Making Friends with Fungi 101

          Very interesting Corbin. Thanks!
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            #6
            Re: Making Friends with Fungi 101

            Absolutely amazing post.... and I've taken the liberty of adding this link so you can see how mushrooms were included in a medieval manuscript - I thought you might find it interesting!
            http://www.metahistory.org/psychonau...atedHeresy.php
            www.thewolfenhowlepress.com


            Phantom Turnips never die.... they just get stewed occasionally....

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              #7
              Re: Making Friends with Fungi 101

              Originally posted by Tylluan Penry View Post
              Absolutely amazing post.... and I've taken the liberty of adding this link so you can see how mushrooms were included in a medieval manuscript - I thought you might find it interesting!
              http://www.metahistory.org/psychonau...atedHeresy.php
              Thank you - that was interesting. I've been a fan of the Wasson group for a long time. Sometimes they go a bit overboard (they seem to forget that it is possible to have intense experiences without being drugged), maybe, but their central thesis is intriguing, and they've certainly amassed a huge body of circumstantial evidence for the use of hallucinogenic fungi outside of the South American continent & Siberia.

              Regardless of whether they are right or wrong, they've collected a huge body of interesting folklore.


              Here's an interesting mushroom that I found the other day after a huge rainstorm. This is a cluster of Coprinus atramentarius that I found growing on an old stump in the duck coop. This habitat is perfect for Coprinus species. The word "Coprinus" translates as "poop loving," and Coprinus mushrooms love to grow where there is poop. And the duck coop yard is pretty much solid duck poop.



              The other part of the name, "atramentarius," translates as "having to do with ink." For reasons I'll explain in a bit, this is a really good description of most Coprinus species.

              Take a close look at the cap on this mushroom:



              Notice that the cap has very deep grooves or ridges. If these were lighter, they would be described as "striations," but when they get this deep, "deeply ridged" is more correct.

              Look also at the edge of the cap. Notice how the edge looks broken, as if some of it has worn away somehow. A ragged margin like this is termed "eroded."

              While you are admiring the lovely eroded cap margins of this beauty, notice also that there appears to be a line of black running along the margin. This is actually a watery black goop made up of self digested mushroom and spores. At maturity, Coprinus mushrooms go through a process known as "deliquescence," where the mushroom, as part of it's spore dispersal strategy, melts down into sporey goo. This is the "ink" referred to in the name.

              Now here's a really interesting feature of the mushroom. It's listed as "Edible, choice," meaning that not only can you eat it safely, but you'll also enjoy the flavor. However, it also includes a warning - if this mushroom is eaten within two day of drinking even small amounts of alcohol, it will make you sick enough to regret it.

              It's a lot like a natural form of the drug anabuse used to treat alcoholics - in fact, the symptoms of anabuse mixed with alcohol and of C. atramentarius mixed with alcohol are so similar that I'm willing to bet that the drug is based on the mushroom toxins.

              Needless to say, this isn't a mushroom I'll be eating very often... But nature is just so weird...
              Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

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