Weird Plastic Baby: Fungus Edition (Missouri Ozark Mushroom Hunting: 12 Photos & Commentary)
Weird Plastic Baby accompanied us for our second foraging scouting mission to Ritter Springs Park in Springfield, Missouri. Since we are both still new to the world of fungi hunting, our main goal right now is to photograph all the mushrooms we can find, spend the winter identifying them all, and then start officially foraging in the Spring. We are very excited.
So, Weird Plastic Baby is, for those who aren't familiar, a baby found in a King Cake, and I had already named him Weird Plastic Baby before I realized that he represents the little baby Jesus, basically. Also, I find it odd that the baby Jesus would have nude-colored shorts on. However that's neither here nor there.
Follow me @jessamynorchard for more assorted randomness!
ALL proceeds from my Steemit account go toward furthering my dreams of being a full time artist and creator. This includes needed equipment, recording costs, gas to and from out of state gigs, and things like food when I'm on the road. To be a full-time creator has been my goal for as long as I can remember, and your upvotes absolutely help me get there. All of my love and thanks to you.💚
Included in Steemprentice Spotlight :)
Great post and awesome pictures girl @jessamynorchard . Congratulations!
@jsantana Thank you my friend! Weird Plastic Baby makes life just a little more fun and interesting. :)
Never heard of a kings cake....spent some time in awe reading about them before returning for more WPB goodness!
Right? I hadn't either, until a few months after I found this weird little dude on the ground a few years ago. Still find the concept odd, but my mother grew up in a home where finding the fat in the can of pork and beans was "the prize" so I guess a weird plastic baby is a better prize than a fat piece. Maybe. Depending. Lol
Aaaaaand gross. lol. I had not heard of that either. I'll just stick with my fried spam.
Lolz very nicely done.
Thank you so much! Taking Weird Plastic Baby photos makes me smile, and I enjoy when he makes others smile, too.
It will be interesting to see what all fungi you find this winter, especially if you go toa variety of different habitats. There are some interesting fungi out there!
It's good that you are taking pictures of the underside of the mushroom caps, too. Because that's a key feature for a lot of them! I posted about the Hedgehog mushrooms that are in your neck of the woods during the fall and winter. If you find those, I think you'll enjoy seeing the little teeth underneath - they are so different than the gills. Happy foraging!
This may be a stupid question, but are there specific varietals (other than the Hedgehogs) that are only available during the winter in Missouri? I do quite a bit of traveling to conservation areas in a 250 mile radius of where I live, which is Southwest Missouri. We are known for our amazing fungi, but I didn't realize we could keep discovering into the winter months.
Do we need to be looking for different kinds of areas in winter? Or will the same spots we have seen producing now continue to produce through the winter? Many of what we saw yesterday looked tired and old. Many were completely spored out.
There are so many different kinds of fungus growing underground or inside trees and other plants, just waiting for the right conditions to make them fruit into mushrooms. Some of the fall and winter mushrooms are great! Sulphur shelf, lobsters, lions mane, turkey tails (to chew like gum), wood ears (for soup) and oysters, along with the hedgehogs. Those are all great mushrooms. There are others, too, like the mock matsutakes and honey mushrooms, that take more skill to keep from getting into real life and death consequences.
Some kinds will keep fruiting as long as the rain and temperatures are just right, especially the kinds that are symbiotic with specific plants. You can find them in that spot, year after year, if the weather's right. Others are more transient. But every rain - heck, every day, is another opportunity to see another mushroom! :D
You've got a good season ahead of you until winter really sets in. It all depends on the rainfall. The greater diversity of habitats, though, the greater diversity of mushrooms you will see. You might check out the Missouri Mycological Society and keep track of their events, to see if they ever have any outings in your 250-mile zone.
@haphazard-hstead Thank you so much for your insight and informational resources. I am very excited to put this knowledge to use.
Do you have a particular guidebook you recommend? We have been looking at the Missouri specific book published by MDC and Audubon's guide book. Are there better ones out there that might be under radar?
One that I really like is "All That the Rain Promises and More" by David Aurora. It's for the western US, but it's the best book I know for making mushrooms seem fun, really fun, and not strange or technical. The key to families, inside the front and back cover, are really good, too. I have a YouTube video that shows me using it - here.
When I visited my parents in northern Arkansas last winter, I looked at my dad's mushroom books. His Audubon guide was clearly the most used! He has so many notes and paperclips in it, it's twice as thick as it ought to be.
He has that book by the Missouri Dept of Conservation, "Missouri's Wild Mushrooms", too. It looks like a good book, especially for getting started. I like books that do more than list species and their characteristics. I like it when they talk about foraging and have recipes, too. That shows that the folks writing the book really have been out there, rather than just editing other information into a book.
Then there's "Mushrooms Demystified". It's a great book, but it is for folks that like to look at every detail of every mushroom, with a magnifying lens, and want to talk in technical jargon, lol. I am not kidding about that! It's becoming outdated, though, as molecular chemistry is changing our understanding of what mushrooms are related to each other.
Anyway, that's a long anwer. Short answer: With that MDC book and the Audubon book, you would have a good start. The "All the Rain Promises" is a fun extra that shows mushrooms can be a big part of a fun life outdoors.