Shaggy Mane or Scaly Ink Cap
/When we got back from voting the Missouri primary last week, I noticed something different about our front yard. Instead of closed the garage door, I went out with my phone in hand to get a closer look. There were two groups of mushrooms that seemed to be somewhat clustered around one of our sprinkler heads. I took some pictures for the iNaturalist app and the two suggestions were Shaggy Mane or Scaly Ink Cap. They are evidently common in yards!
I did some macro views with my Samsung Galaxy 10 phone (with 4 and 8x magnification). There were parts that were very black…some that look like part of a pinecone…like roasted marshmallow…like neatly organized fibers.
I went inside to get my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) to use its optical zoom for another round of images. There seemed to be many stages of mushroom development in the group and I realized that they must have come up overnight since our yard was mowed the previous day!
By the next morning – after a lot of rain overnight – the mushrooms were blackened. Hopefully they matured enough to create spores and we’ll have more in our yard!
