Flowers and Foliage September 2008

[Armin]

Maggi,
one day Thomas will have bred & selected those crocus and colchicums who can withstand rain and storm
That would be super

[Maggi Young]

Armin, i think you are right.... if anyone can then Thomas can He has a great skill with these flowers.

[Kristl Walek]

Escholtzia stauntonii is always the last woody species to bloom in the garden here.
Actinidia fruits still trying to ripen.
Epilobium canum garrettii still blooming (3rd month?)
And first hint of autumn colour in the Euonymus.

First frost last night!!!!

[gote]

TC,
I think you should pick the chanterelles. There is no poisonus fungus that is even remotely similar and they are for some reaon never attacked by larvae. (But by deer)

The dangerous ones are the white agarics. We had a death this year in Sweden (A foreign woman who did not have the Swedish mushroom collecting background). They are mistaken for Champignons. However, the Champignons never have white gills even very young ones have pink gills - later they become black. The agarics always have white gills.

Göte

[Maggi Young]

I would always advise caution with fungi: this from a fungi book:
"Caution is required when identifying chanterelles for eating as there are look-alikes that either taste poor or can make you very ill:

The False chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca) has finer, more orange gills and a darker cap.

The Jack O'Lantern mushroom (Omphalotus olearius) and its sister species (Omphalotus olivascens) are very similar in appearance to chanterelles and will make you very sick, although they are not lethal. Unlike chanterelles they have true gills (not forked or divided) that are thinner, have distinct crowns, and generally do not reach up to the edge. Additionally, the Jack-O-Lantern mushroom is bioluminescent and it tends to grow in clumps on trees – NOT under trees, like the chanterelle.

Be Aware of the deadly Cortinarius speciosissimus
There are about 10,000 species of mushroom found in Britain and Cortinarius speciosissimus, which has a reddish brown cap and rust-coloured gills, is known to be one of the most deadly. Found mostly in Scotland, where it grows in conifer woods, it causes damage to the liver, kidneys and spinal cord. As other members of the Cortinarius family are also dangerous, none is recommended for human consumption. This species grows in similar locations and can look similar to edible chanterelles."


There has been a case in recent weeks of four people admitted to hospital in Northern Scotland ,after eating wild mushrooms... two are now on kidney dialysis and may require transplants.
Ian has just told me that one woman of these four poisoned has died. 

[Rafa]

a cuple of autumn species

[David Shaw]

When the Horse Whisperer mushroom story first broke I looked up the web to find the species they had eaten. It was a horrible brown thing that I would never have considered picking. Carol and I are long time fungi foragers but we have a very limited list of types that we collect and eat. These all taste good and are, obviously, non toxic.
I hope that for once Ian has got something wrong in saying that one of the females has died from the poisoning.

[Maggi Young]

A woman on the Isle of Wight died on the 17th after eating wild fungi and it may be this woman Ian is referring to, rather than one of the 4 in Scotland who became ill..... nasty way to go for the poor woman.

[Maggi Young]

When the Horse Whisperer mushroom story first broke I looked up the web to find the species they had eaten. It was a horrible brown thing that I would never have considered picking.

To explain this reference to the Horse Whisperer: this quote from a newspaper
"........... the poisonous species of mushroom: Cortinarius speciosissimus, to which novelist Nicholas Evans, his wife and  in-laws fell victim while on holiday near Forres last week.

Evans, author of the bestselling novel The Horse Whisperer, and his wife, Charlotte, were on holiday on the Moray estate of her brother, Sir Alastair Gordon-Cumming, and they, plus Sir Alastair’s wife Louise, had to be hospitalised after cooking and eating mushrooms picked during a woodland walk. They were given dialysis at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary"

The fungus reportedly causing the poisoning is not too hard to mistake for a chanterelle, for the inwise and unwary!
 http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/gallery/DisplayBlock~bid~5455.asp  for pix

[Lars S]

Yes, it´s always very tragic when such a pleasant thing as picking mushrooms in the forest ends in people getting poisioned.
I think that mushrooms lika plants require practising to learn. But, I must say that I think that mistaking Cortinarius for Cantharellus should not be any risk at all if you consult even a basic field book about mushrooms. They are really very different in apperance. On the other hand I would always avoid brown mushrooms with brown gills like the Tricholomas and Rozites caperata (don´t know The English names).
The false chanterelle is also very different from the genuine one. The safest thing is to stick to the Boletus kind of mushrooms.
An other thing is that even a edible mushroom can make you sick if it has started to decay when it´s picked.

Lars
Stockholm / Sweden

[Kenneth K]

Two autumnflowering bulbs in the autumn sun.
1. Crocus hadriaticus 'Crystal'
2. Colchicum sanguicolle

[Slug Killer]

Lilium gloriosoides var.

Open today in yet more sunshine

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Exquisite Lilium Dave !
Good to see these Autumn bulbs Kenneth - very nice colours.

Here's some flowers in my garden at the moment

1) Delphinium tatsianense - sown early this year
2) Gentiana 'Blue silk'
3) Same contrasting with a yellow Gazania
4) general view showing all three

[art600]

Luc

I was getting worried that you only admired flowers and did not grow them anymore. 

Your rock garden is looking very good.  How big is it?  What further treasures might we expect?

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Hi Art !

My garden isn't all that big - I guess all the parts added up, some 250 m2.
I've been a bit lazy taking pix lately - also because there's fewer things flowering in Summer.

I posted some pix of my garden in last years May thread - page 6

http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=474.75