Summer Mushroom Hunting

I'm on a see food diet.  If I see food I eat it.  I also love to cook it in interesting ways.  A couple years ago an online friend got me interested in wild mushrooms.  And not the funny ones!  I love mushrooms and the idea of eating what I find is incredibly appealing to I bought some guides, hit some websites, and I'm trying to safely pursue this challenging hobby.

Here is this months collection.  Again, I missed morel season.  But then, I have no idea how to spot morals.  We've been collecting in town and the yard but my big spot is the Dickson Point Campground and fish pond at Glennifer Lake about 30 minutes from home: Dickson Point Campground.  There's a great abundance of interesting mushrooms in the bush and meadows.  I have confidently identified the most common ones I find as Leccinum but I'm working to determine if they are Leccinum Boreale or Leccinum Insigne (Aspen Bolette).  I'm working on determining which but in the mean time I've dried a few pounds.  We find a lot of big ones nearly 20 cm but they tend to be very full of maggots.  The little young ones like these are quite free of extra protein.

The giveaways in identification are the clear pore tubes on the underside, the scabs on the stalk, and the orange cap.  I sure wish I could find some king bolettes (Boletus Edulis) but no luck so far.

This big polypore has been on the base of this white spruce at the site for a couple of years.  I didn't want to cut such a happy shroom to do a spore print so I'm quite unsure what it might be.  Next trip I'll cut off one of it's small pals and try for an identification.

We also found a few other interesting ones under the spruce.  I took some pictures and one sample but it didn't make it home in good enough condition to indentify.  It's got the remnants of a veil and it's gilled so that's a starting point.  My first guess is some kind of amanita.

These little guys are all over the stumps.  I've no idea what they might be yet.

But the coolest find were  three great yellow monsters all in a clump.  It was great for identification to have one completely open and one just starting to open.  The big one is 20 cm in diameter and stood 30 cm high.  Quite a beast and striking in colour.  Bright orangey yellow.  I brought the three home and did a spore print on the medium size sample.  The spores are white.  The two open ones have annuli from the left overs of the veil and the small one had it's veil intact.  All three had volvas.  The scale of the mushroom shows clearly with my son in the background.  He's become extremely interested in finding mushrooms and regularly asks when we'll go hunting again.

Here's a closeup of the annulus and gills.  And a picture of my son in the yard showing off our finds.

Working through the key in my guide book I am pretty sure this is a large amanita. Keeping going on the key and noting the shape of the volva, scales on the cap, colour and size; I think they are Amanita Muscaria (Fly Agaric).  Now these are NOT for eating.  Supposedly they were used by the Lapps to cause visions.  I think I'll skip that part.  I have more than enough visions without herbal assistance. Rogers Mushrooms on Fly Agaric

So far I haven't eaten anything.  I've got some stockpiles of aspen bolete in a jar.  Some time soon I'll try out some recipes.  It's sort of slow going since I'm doing this alone.  I want to go on one of the forays with the Alberta Mycological Society when I get my membership.  So far, the schedule hasn't worked for me.