Mushroom Watch

With the cooler weather (relatively speaking--in the high 80s and 90s) and the rain, we have got to enjoy some mushrooms out our side glass door. 

The first one just seemed to appear one day--already bigger than the size of my hand.

I love this photo for some reason. :)

I texted the photos to my niece, Anna, who is my only expert on mushrooms.  She has taken some amazing photos of very beautiful and unusual mushrooms along the east coast.  She told me that this is probably a Chlorophyllum molybdites mushroom.  She told me not to eat it because it is poisonous--not enough to kill a person but to make your stomach very sick.  She also told me it wouldn't grow any bigger because it was showing signs of being near the end of its life and sure enough, it starting falling down the next day.

But she also told us to watch for more mushrooms in the general area over the next month or so.  And sure enough, we soon had some "babies."

This time, we were able to watch how quickly they grew--even more morning to evening, it was noticeable that they got taller and bigger.  At first I wasn't sure they were the same kind, because we had only seen the one with the flatter top...so we watched and took lots of pictures.  Jena did as well.

We were on "mushroom watch."

I am sure they are likely the same type of mushroom but three of them like above had smooth stems while the fourth one, below, had ridges on his stem.  He also got to be the biggest of the four.

Starting to expand....

Our little family of four.....

And they are starting to fall apart now....this was about a week process which I am sure is also impacted by weather, etc.

Our little biology lesson for the week!

During the same time, I found these mushrooms at the Liberty Cemetery near Greenwood.  From a distance, they looked almost like old golf  balls--round spheres sitting on the ground.  I wonder what they look like now?