Come get to know this little furry fall mushroom - the Haresfoot Inky Cap. I've got a great holiday gift idea at the end, too! So come into my post for a look at Coprinopsis lagopus, close up and personal.

Haresfoot Inky Caps are a common mushroom on woodchip piles in my yard, my neighborhood, and throughout Oregon's Willamette Valley. They emerge in November after the fall rains start and last until deep frost. The mushrooms are the fruit of the fungus that is feeding off the nutrients of the wood chips. They may be in your region, too, because they occur in many places around the world [1].

Pushing up through the wood chips where it likes to live, the newly emergent mushrooms look soft and furry. But on closer inspection, that "fur" is more like very fragile scales. It's the remnants of the universal veil covering the mushroom "egg" deep in the wood chips. It comes off the cap so easily. The mushrooms caps coming up from my woodpile are nearly 2 inches tall. Depending on the temperature, it can take a day or two for them to fully emerge and open up, but then they auto-digest themselves within hours.

The little scales come off so easily.

The Haresfoot Inky Cap is one of many auto-digesting mushrooms. Each cap turns to a black goo that is like ink. They don't last long before all that's left is the stem and some inky debris where the cap was. This behavior is a key feature of Inky Cap mushrooms in general. The fragile white stalk, fuzzy scales, black spores, and woodchip habitat are distinctive characteristics of the Haresfoot, also known as the Wooly Inky Cap [1].

How fast does an autodigesting mushroom grow? Compare these two shots of a little Haresfoot Inky Cap with the green seedlings right next to it. Those tiny sprouts are getting nourishment from their seed. They don't have much to work with. But the fast-growing fungal fruit is getting its resources from a much larger mycelial network. Mushrooms don't waste any time taking advantage of weather conditions suitable for reproducing!

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A Holiday Gift-Giving Bonus Tip

Give a gardener or mushroom enthusiast a pile of wood chips for Christmas - they will love it! Wood chips are great resource for a garden or for backyard entertainment. In a garden, they make a great mulch that fosters fungal mycelium that improves the moisture holding abilities of the soil. However, left in an undisturbed pile, they provide years of surprises as different mushrooms emerge with the changing seasons. Then the aged, decomposed chips can be worked into the soil directly for a boost of nutrients!

The Haresfoot Inky Cap is one of the first mushrooms to move into the woodchip piles here at Haphazard Homestead and across Oregon's Willamette Valley. But they emerge in the autumn and early winter in many places around the world. What mushrooms would you find if you had a large pile of wood chips?

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Source: Mushrooms Demystified, David Aurora, 1986. One of the best mushrooms reference books you can get!

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What Do You Think?

Have you ever seen the little Haresfoot Inky Cap mushrooms? How about some of the other auto-digesting mushrooms? Do you have a pile of woodchips and watch for mushrooms there? Do you know someone who would like a pile of woodchips as a gift? I want to hear from you!

I write about foraging because I believe that we can all have lives that are richer, more secure, more grounded, and more interesting by getting to know the plants and the land around us – in our yards, our parks, and our wilderness.

I would like Steemit to be the premier site for Foraging on the Internet! If you have any thoughts about foraging, or experiences to share, write a post and be sure to use the Foraging tag. And check out the @foraging-trail to see curated quality posts about foraging. Happy Foraging!

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** Haphazard Homestead **

*** foraging, gardening, nature, simple living close to the land ***

All content is 100% Haphazard Homestead - photos and all!

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