Damien Pack on Mushroom Cultivation

Editor’s Note: I’ve been really enjoying digging through the audio archives of the radio documentary I did about mushroom people in 2011, Crazy About Mushrooms, and I wanted to present another story that I got from one of my most intriguing interviewees, a mushroom Read More

Pleurotus Dryinus, the Veiled Oyster Mushroom

Editor’s Note: In my effort to catalog some of our more common North Carolina and eastern U.S. mushrooms, I have done little to touch on the varied species in the genus Pleurotus, which are generally called “oyster mushrooms.” Oyster mushrooms are one Read More

Amanita Jacksonii, the Eastern Caesar's Amanita

Editor’s Note: Correction: In the first publication of this blog, I mistakenly used a photograph of Amanita frostiana by Eric Smith and attributed it to a different Mushroom Observer user; I sincerely apologize for this error and have added the photo I Read More

Mushrooms Are Sexy Part II – Fungi Are Everywhere!

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series about the history of mycology and the basics of fungal reproduction. If you’re interested in learning more about how sexy mushrooms can be, take a look at the last post. Read More

Mushrooms Are Sexy Part I – A Spore to Shroom View of Fungal Bio

Editor’s Note: Well, I’ve managed to go more than a week without posting to this blog, and the reason is simple but a little reprehensible; you see, it’s officially chanterelle mushroom season in North Carolina, and all the time I Read More

Hericium Mushrooms of the Eastern United States

Editor’s Note: Of all the mushrooms that grow in the eastern United States, few outstrip the Hericium mushrooms in terms of beauty and excellent flavor. These mushrooms are also very likely to cause significant heartache among mushroom hunters who find Hericium mushrooms growing high Read More

A Birdseye Overview of Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms (Pun Intended)

Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a series of articles I will dedicate to members of the Laetiporus genus, commonly called chicken of the woods mushrooms. I am not 100% sure why they have this common name, but I strongly Read More

A Quick Tour of the Amanita Genus

Editor’s Note: This post was inspired by a reader who suggested that I take a bit of time on this blog to explain how to determine the genus of different sorts of mushrooms. One of the best approaches to learning wild mushroom Read More

The Cinnabar Red Chanterelle, Cantharellus cinnabarinus

Editor’s Note: This post about the cinnabar red chanterelle is the third in a series I am dedicating to chanterelle mushrooms in the genus Cantharellus; the first addressed the “classic” yellow-orange chanterelles that grow in North Carolina, and the second Read More

Indigo Milky Caps – An Admirable Edible NC Mushroom

Editor’s Note: Every time I sit down to write an article about one of the many delicious species NC edible mushrooms, I am tempted to start my notes with an exclamation about how it’s one of my favorite fungi of all time. Read More