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Protecting the Mountain Gorillas of Virunga

Dry Season Ends, Mushrooms Return

6 Sep 2009 Filed under (Other Animals) by Eddy @ 4:35 pm

The beginning of September marked the end of the dry season, much to the relief of the water-starved people who live on the outskirts of Virunga National Park. With the rain many different types of weird and wonderful mushrooms have sprouted in the forest.

Are there any mycologists (mushroom experts) out there who can help us identify them?

These tiny mushrooms were growing out of a dead log

This fungus was very fleshy

What is that green stuff?

These mushrooms were growing on elephant dung

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3 Responses to “Dry Season Ends, Mushrooms Return”

  1. Timi Timi Says: 6 Sep 2009

    To recognize a mushroom, one needs to look at it where it grows, from top, from sideways, and also from below, after picking it up. One also needs to smell the mushrooms for identification. One single picture like yours is not enough for anyone to reliably recognize a mushroom, except in some are cases.

    Anyhow, I would never even pick up (in order to smell it or anything) any all-white mushroom that looks like the one in your first picture, because it looks very similar to the mushroom that is the most poisonous in my country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroying_angel. Only this summer, eight people were treated in a hospital, some in very severe condition, all for eating this mushroom. Usually, we have only few cases per year, but this year, these mushrooms were so very abundant that even experienced pickers were fooled. Fortunately, only one of the eight has died, but she was very experienced.

  2. Timi Timi Says: 6 Sep 2009

    Maybe I should add an explanation to my previous comment. The people who were poisoned by mushrooms had all eaten these mushrooms. Plain smelling them is not that dangerous.

    We pick and eat lots of different kinds of mushrooms that naturally grow in Finland. For example, various kinds of chanterelles, russulas, boletes, vax caps and milk-caps. We even eat even false morals that require careful preparation to make them non-poisonous. Unfortunately, the English wikipedia does not show pictures of nearly all my favorites, not even the absolutely best one, yellowfoot chanterelle.

  3. pierrep Pierre Says: 7 Sep 2009

    Hi Timi- thanks for the feedback. I guess we will just have to enjoy looking at these mushrooms from a respectful distance!

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