It’s been wet this week – too wet to do much gardening. This has encouraged the Ink Caps to grow. They seemed to spring up over night.
It first appears as just a small white mushroom which then grows into a cylinder with a pretty black frill:
But it soon opens out:
and eventually, having released its spores it looks like this, and then it dissolves:
It’s also known as Lawyer’s Wig and Shaggy Mane. Apparently, it is edible, but I don’t fancy eating it.
For more Saturday Snapshots see Melinda’s blog West Metro Mommy Reads.
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What great photos, and educational, as I did not know that is how they look after the spores have been released.
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This is so educative!
Here is my snapshot post.
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What an unusual journey this mushroom takes…and it’s great you could capture all the increments of its growth. And thanks for visiting my blog.
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No…doesn’t look very tasty. I love the names, though!
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I love mushrooms, but it’s wise to exercise caution when picking ones in the wild!
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We have a variety of mushrooms, but I’ve never seen one like that. Very cool. Thanks so much for providing three photos so we can witness its life cycle!
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What an intriguing series of photos. I’d be tempted to try one.
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Margaret – Oh, those are great ‘photos! We don’t get a lot rain here, but when we do, we get mushrooms too. They don’t look as interesting as that one does though.
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Hi Margaret,
I haven’t come across this particular mushroom before and I love the alternative names which have been offered up for it.
I wouldn’t fancy eating it however and certainly wouldn’t think about picking and eating it straight from the field. I did try this once, when as a fairly young child, a friend’s family invited me to go mushroom picking with them. All of us children ate as many mushrooms as we picked, although I was the only one who was violently ill later. I was either just the unlucky one, or my friends parents had better educated them about ‘bad’ mushrooms, than my own had!
They do say, that the prettiest of something, be it insects, flowers, plants, or indeed mushrooms, are generally the deadliest … I have never quite worked out why that is.
Your Ink Cap is certainly very pretty when in its first throes of life.
Thanks for sharing your picture and enjoy your weekend,
Yvonne
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Great pictures! Don’t know if I’d have the courage to eat it, but…I do love mushrooms…so it would be very tempting…
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Lawyer’s Wig — that got a wider smile from me since I was already smiling at the nice progression of shots. Cute little things! Thanks for sharing.
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