Life Art Fungi

06/15/2026

06/11/2026

Want to see more of these awesome organisms and mushroom identification!?

I made a full video digging in the Pennslvanian dirt on YT!

06/09/2026

This mushroom doesn’t have a common name! As you read, see if we can come up with something fun and comprehensive for it…

This is Gymnopus subsulphureus, very similar to the Oak Loving Gymnopus save a few features, if you know where to look! These have a more yellowish tinge to them, and more distinctly, pinkish rhizomorphs (roots) that stick out of the base of the stem if you pluck them out carefully. Look at the stem base of the bottom-left mushroom above!

Many of the names of similar species of Gymnopus have names such as Red-stemmed Gymnopus, or Watery Toughshank. I can’t say I am a fan of toughshank, how about:

Pink-Rooted Gymnopus

Yellow Pinkfoot

Salmon Thread Gymnopus

Hmm… What do you think?

https://lifeartfungi.substack.com/p/the-joy-of-having-a-hobby-with-unlimited

06/08/2026

I have reached a point where I know many of the mushrooms I find, and if I don’t it is likely something that needs to be DNA sequenced. This is only true for my home area of course, I wish I knew all the mushrooms around the world! Which leads me to this article, showing off the mushrooms that have escaped my eyes until very recently!

I must start off with the largest mushroom of the group, since I have kept an eye out for these Trainwreckers ever since I first saw them in a field guide years ago. They grow on decaying conifer and are large, white and scaly. Supposedly they are edible, but more along the lines of survival food than a culinary treat. Definitely don’t eat anything that comes out of chemically treated wood, which these will eagerly grow out of as well. Now, when I looked into why it was named this strong and strange name, I did not expect this mushroom to actually wreck trains, but alas anything is possible in this world. Apparently these are one of the few mushrooms that can digest the creosote treatment of railway ties. Wowzers, when I mentioned the growth out of treated wood above, this was not what I had in mind!

https://lifeartfungi.substack.com/p/the-joy-of-having-a-hobby-with-unlimited