Halloween Mushrooms
Searching for Halloween mushrooms is a fun way to spend a sunny fall afternoon in the woods.
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The Orange Cup (aleuria aurantia) mushroom sports an orange color rivaling any pumpkin.
Its cup shape contrasts with the common cap and stem conception of a mushroom.
Cup mushrooms are part of a much larger class of fungi formally called Ascomycetes. They are also known as sac fungi, because their spores are stored in tiny sacs, collectively called asci.
Truffles and morels are two popular Ascomycetes mushrooms.
Orange Cup mushrooms are a stem less variety of cup mushrooms. Like most, they are relatively small and grow in clusters on the sides of trails and dirt roads in most forested areas of the United States. The Orange Cup in the picture is the size of a nickel.
Taking a few steps off the trail into the forest will help with locating both ghosts and ghost looking mushrooms.
The mushroom in the picture is a small jelly mushroom called Pseudohydnum gelatinosum.
They grow on the floors of conifer forests and their translucent stem and half cap stand out against the usual green and brown background. If anything, they are friendly ghosts, often growing next to edible mushrooms such as chanterelles.
Neither species is considered poisonous, however, the rule of wild mushrooms still applies. Look, touch, photograph and think of them as Halloween decorations rather than Halloween candy.
© 2007. Patricia A. Michaels. All Rights Reserved.