Irina

Found this creature for the first time on what looked to be part of a spruce log. I never find winter jellies!

Thank you, Dave! That explains the lack of slug enthusiasm for this one.

Found on the lower part of the property toward a mixed cedar/spruce area, getting toward the swampy part. Standing alone -- sturdy, especially the thick cap, and it has some kind of aroma, but hard for me to describe.

Does anyone have some personal experience or a cultural connection to the edibility of this mushroom? I see a lot of cut and paste "inedible" in NA and some "edible" in the UK, which makes me think -- possibly edible but not particularly tasty, or perhaps just not really well known. I never find many of these, but I find them almost every year.

Looks like a perfect match, thank you @michele!

Could it be Phaeolus schweinitzii also? That's a pretty common mushroom here and it looks a bit like that, and turns black after its season.

So colorful! Love the speckled cap and the yellow gillls and the sorbet stems! This was growing direct from ground in pine duff on a dry slope, mixed conifer forest. No smell that I can tell. Pretty heavy in the hand for its size, kind of rubbery and strong, doesn't want to break or flake.

I think this could be a couple of varieties, would love someone's opinion. Also, have you eaten them? Found 5 growing in a cluster out of moss on a granite boulder. All had the wavy, thin stem ... all petite, velvety dark-brown caps, bright yellow pores. Blues fairly slowly. I tried for a 'lemony' taste but didn't detect one. Some possibles might be Aureoboletus citriniporus or Boletellus chrysenteroides. Edibility is hard to find on citriniporus.

Wow! Thank you! How cool. The stem really is brown-velvet in color and texture, I didn't notice. A very pleasant looking chunky mushroom that should be ID'able from now on. This part of the wiki description is perfect: "a mushroom that appears even in dry conditions when most others are absent"!

There were many mosquitoes so I didn't give this mushroom a good look in situ! Sorry for the bare description, but maybe somebody knows it ... a chunky mushroom with lactarius-ish gills (no latex), growing out of a heavily rotted stump, that could have been spruce. I'll see if I can pick up something else about it.

Thank you so much, Dave! It's wonderful to learn what it is.

These don't have a strong smell, I'd say the large gills are notched, and they peel very easily from the cap, they also have a flimsy "fish gill" type of texture. The stem is extremely fibrous, "string cheese" texture -- if your string cheese happens to be very very tough. Although I think these are all the same species, we actually found the first ones growing on a severely rotted white birch log, and the second on a heavily rotted red maple snag. Pretty gregarious growing. Thanks for any ideas!

Thank you so much! Great information. It's so distinct in smell, texture, I'll definitely know it now if I ever see one again.

I've never in-person seen either morels, or the lookalike with rocket fuel compounds. But we found this on the path today where someone left it, and I wondered if it might be the lookalike. Very crisp texture, pleasant mushroom aroma -- I think the stem is hollow although it was folded closed -- velvety surface along the cap's pleats and folds, which have a nice mahogany color. What do you think?

is there anything vaguely similar to this that could be grown in the northeast?