Shaggy Mane Mushroom (Coprinus comatus) commonly seen in North America and Europe, though in my years of looking for fungi, I’ve only seen these which I’ve captured in pixels, down the dirt road, on my mountain. They grow in man-made habitats such as lawns, along dirt roads, beside hiking trails, in neglected areas, or even pushing up through the gravel of a parking lot. Showing up in groups, long rambling lines, or fairy rings. Another of the saprobic fungi which obtains its nutrients from decaying organic matter.

Starting out as egg shaped, they sometimes become columns up to 6 inches tall and 1 to 2 inches thick. With a stem that is white, sometimes up to 12 inches high, a bit less than 1 inch thick.

The Shaggy Mane has a method of spore dispersal that seems to me is purely magical. In a matter of just a day this fungus can go from being a white, egg shaped column to looking like a partially opened umbrella, turning black and dripping black liquid containing spores in a process called deliquescence. In chemistry the definition of deliquescence is, a process by which a substance absorbs moisture from the atmosphere until it dissolves in the absorbed water and forms a solution. Or in my terminology, magic.

I’m only sorry that in my photographs I didn’t capture the ultimate view of deliquescence. Those partially opened umbrella looking caps, literally dripping with an inky black liquid.

This blog gives no information about the edibility or toxicity of any of the mushrooms that are written about.

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