'shrooms #phenology

According to Larry Weber's Backyard Almanac, September is mushroom month. The Better Half was calling my attention to their abundance a day or two ago. Today the sun came out and so did the camera. This Summer's weather, with three months worth of June rains, certainly has helped the local fungi

We didn't watch last night's presidential candidate performances so we wouldn't feel like proverbial mushrooms ourselves, "kept in the dark with people shoveling manure on us.". I'm not a mycologist, nor, to my knowledge, do I know any experts at mushroom identification, so today we'll just settle for photos from this morning. All were taken along the driveway or within 75 yards or so of it. It's enough to convince me that Mr. Weber has correctly called September, especially since I think I may have missed a few examples. When I think of 'shrooms, my biases run toward morels and Spring. I'll be more open-minded from hence forward.

[Note: hummingbirds continue to arrive at our feeder although Jim Gilbert informs us this is the time when Baltimore Orioles head South.)

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants - (1350)

By Emily Dickinson

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants -

At Evening, it is not

At Morning, in a Truffled Hut

It stops upon a Spot

As if it tarried always

And yet it’s whole Career

Is shorter than a Snake’s Delay -

And fleeter than a Tare -

’Tis Vegetation’s Juggler -

The Germ of Alibi -

Doth like a Bubble antedate

And like a Bubble, hie -

I feel as if the Grass was pleased

To have it intermit -

This surreptitious Scion

Of Summer’s circumspect.

Had Nature any supple Face

Or could she one contemn -

Had Nature an Apostate -

That Mushroom - it is Him!

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