Magical mushrooms around the bay?  Yes!  It used to be that you would have to head to the hills to see mushrooms, but not this year!  The rains brought on some incredible fungi around town.

After a friend showed me photos of some incredible mushrooms, I gathered up my family to go on a magical mushroom walk through the neighborhood.  And holy moly, did we find mushrooms!  Within a 5 block radius we spotted over seven different types of mushrooms throughout Albany.

Here are TEN fabulous fun fungi facts:

1. It’s unknown exactly how many species of mushrooms exist, but some reports state that there are over 14,000 different species of mushrooms.
2. Purplish Entoloma, Octopus Stinkhorn, Dead Man’s Fingers, and Zombie Fungus are all types of mushrooms.  Uhm, seriously?  Yes!  My personal fav: Bread Dough Clitopilus.
3. Real chanterelles do not have sharp gills, but rather blunt veins on the underside
4. A spore print is a mushroom identification technique commonly used by mycologists and mushroom hunters to help identify the genus of a specimen and differentiate between similar looking species.
5. Mushrooms are the fruit of a fungus. Similar to an apple growing on a fruit tree, the mushrooms are the tip and usually only represent about 5% of the fungus.
6. Morphological characteristics of the caps of mushroom are essential for correct visual mushroom identification.
7. Mendocino holds an annual mushroom festival, as do many other US cities.
8. The yartsa gunbu are found in the wild growing out of caterpillars.
9. Bioluminescent mushrooms are mushrooms that glow; commonly called “electric mushrooms,” they can glow bright enough to be used as natural torches.
10. Shaggy Ink Cap mushrooms actually eat themselves once they are picked.  Better consume within 24 hours or you will have a black, inky mess on your hands.

Rosie went on a fantastical mushroom journey.  Here is what she had to say: