(no subject)

this morning, in the walled garden outside my building, there were three large mushrooms sprouting. the soil around them was newly ruptured---i find this so interesting because they were so huge, and they had obviously grown so quickly, overnight. so this morning i've been doing a little amateur mycology, and i have identified the mushroom! i picked the largest cap of one, and an entire medium-sized one for identification. there are no pictures online, unfortunately. they are: callistosporium purpureomarginatum. a purplish-reddish-brownish ovoid cap, no bruising, no milking; purplish attached gills; spongy fibrous stem with tough lateral ridges. white spore print. some puckering on the cap.


here is the boston mycological club, which has amusing headlines. "optimists thrilled! the morel is found!" this page of rules for morels has funny mnemonics like "if it's reddish, you could be dead-ish". now i want to go mushroom hunting. i didn't know it was possible to hunt king boletes/ceps here in the northeast.

i have vivid memories of the black truffle festival in gubbio, italy, which i visited during my junior year abroad. there was a vast tent full of tables and tables of truffle sellers, and free samples of pate tartuffo nero on bread. i bought a tiny jar of it for 25,000 lira and brought it home to my family, but i don't think they appreciated it as much as i did. truffles make me swoon.