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Chroogomphus....?


Brook

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These are pretty common, but I haven't found them in great numbers... I also haven't sought them out either.

I have not tried eating them yet because Arora says that they are better dried, and to be honest I have never found a large enough quantity of any edible that I needed to dry them...so I do not have a dehydrator.... I guess I could try the popcorn string method? Anyone have success with that?

Anyway, these are a 'pine spike' I am pretty sure, but I do not have the ID to species. Didn't take a spore print either....was camping with a baby (need I say more?) haha

I want to become more familiar with this family because they are so common.... just need a good way to preserve them first. I should just fork out the cash and get a dehydrator... just things are tight when on mat. leave <_< haha

What do you all think of the edibility of Chroogomphus...?

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These don't look anything like the Chroogomphus I'm familiar with. The gills should be obviously decurrent (running down the stem). They look like some type of Cortinarius to me, but I never try to identify that genus to species, except for a few obvious ones.

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Well I have been wrong before!!! LOL I do not have much practice with Cortinarius... so I have no rebuttle! haha

I went in my files to see if I got a better pic of the gills, no luck - but I think I remember the gills running down the stalk...The specimens pictured above were very young still. But it DOES look like the gills are in fact NOT running down the stalk!

Have I gone astray.....? :huh:

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Well it seems my description (to myself) of the veil was a bit off....

I thought it looked 'hairy'(chroogomphus)... when I should of thought it looked like 'cobweb'(Cortinarius).....??

THIS is why I like this hobby so much.... very challenging! It will be YEARS before I am an expert... so it is tough to get bored! hahaha

Love this site! Thanks guys!

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For reference here is a photo of a young pine spike that I found today. Once you've correctly ID'd one, they are easy to recognize. They are very common out here on the west coast. Unfortunately, though edible, they don't have much flavor.

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Brook, I think this is a good opportunity for you to learn to separate the Chroogomphus from the Corts by way of spore print color. Corts have rusty brown (sometimes reddish) prints and Chroogs have blackish or greenish prints. Take the prints on both white and black paper (or other background).

While camping in the Rockies I had a chance to sample some C. pseudovinicolor. I recall them tasting okay. Arora includes some stuff about the edibility of Chroogs in MD. He says he's not overly fond of them, but that some folks like them. I think he mentions about one person dehydrating them.

I would think that a mature Cort which has lost all evidence of the cortina could be a tough call alongside a Chroog.

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Dave, are there any Corts that have obviously decurrent gills? I've never seen a Cort that looks remotely like Chroogomphus tomentosus in this area (Pacific Northwest).

Coincidentally, yesterday I was wondering about some ways to eliminate "Cortinarius" as a possible genus when trying to get started on an ID, and one thing that occurred to me is that Cort gills are not typically decurrent. Usually, they are notched/attached to adnate (attached by full width). Some mushroom types that have variable gill attachment have stalks that expand downward in such a way that the gills get stretched at the points of attachment, thus taking on a decurrent appearance. But I do not recall seeing this in any Corts. So this may be a good way to eliminate "Cortinarius" as a possibility... when the mushroom at hand has decurrent gills.

There are lots of Corts documented at Rogers Mushrooms

http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/gallery/default~gid~~page~6~startPage~1~chr~c.asp

I just checked a few species, and in most of the cases selected, there is no mention of gill attachment type. So maybe the majority of Corts have a fairly uniform gill attachment type (notched, I would say). Still, I wonder if there are a few exceptions out there. I often just pass by Corts growing in the woods, because I figure I'm not going to know --or learn-- the species ID.

Did a little more checking, and found one example of a Cort with gills that show a "decurrent tooth." The species seen via the Mushroom Expert link below belongs to a species in the Dermocybe sub-genus of Cortinarius. These types have colorful gills, and some are dangerously poisonous.

http://mushroomexpert.com/cortinarius_phoeniceus_occidentalis.html

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That "decurrent tooth" is really stretching the definition of decurrent gills. You'd have to be pretty unobservant to mistake that mushroom for a pine spike. The literature that I've seen says that the pine spike is pretty easy to distinguish. Thanks for looking into the Corts; I never try to identify them.

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