take my advice, don't try to "help" the dorsals on brachys. every time i try i end up splitting the dorsal at the tip. 
pic from prior my destructive fiddling.
pic from prior my destructive fiddling.
paph concolor
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mrhappyrotter
Grand Chupacabra
Give it a whiff. Let me know what you think. These smell like barf and apple peels to me. Or maybe rancid cheese. But I love the flowers otherwise, and of course the foliage is gorgeous.
Interesting! I always forget to give new blooms a sniff. I smell a very subtle whiff of wet leather shoes.
Tom-DE
Well-Known Member
I have no idea what wet leather shoes smell like
...but I remember that I used to be able to afford a pair of $500 shoes, now I can only afford a pair of cheap slippers...Serious tho, it is nice but I didn't know it was fragrant...good to know.
i live in pacific northwest so i am unfortunately very familiar with the smell of old wet shoes. heh!I have no idea what wet leather shoes smell like
Serious tho, it is nice but I didn't know it was fragrant...good to know.
Nice one
I am sorry for your troubles and hope you can get some decent shoes. I got a $400 pair of boots from a thrift store yesterday for $10. I no longer shop for shoes at regular retail outlets. I am hard on shoes and boots due to my mushroom foraging and need good quality footwear due to injuries. You can’t always find good new or lightly used/reparable shoes in thrift stores but if you visit multiple stores as convenient, you will, especially in a major city. Most of the shoes I get from thrift stores are, or seem, new; I avoid worn soles and never buy anything dirty. I also have a good friend who lives rural and needs a size 14 and at least once a year I’m able to pick him up something good.
Curious; what “help” are you trying to provide? This flower is lovely. The uniform dotting is particularly sweet on this one. They’re not meant to be flat. I hope you can celebrate this perfect flower as the natural evolutionary achievement it is.take my advice, don't try to "help" the dorsals on brachys. every time i try i end up splitting the dorsal at the tip.
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Tom-DE
Well-Known Member
LOL! That was a joke... I can't even dare to think about getting my shoes in the thrift shop...nothing wrong with it but just not for me.
I can ask you about wild mushrooms someday. We have a lot of them on our property year-round, especially in the fall. I know nothing about them but I am sure some might be edible.
I tried to pop and flatten the dorsal. I know! I know! Super dumb move. I've learned my lesson with the butchering of this little lady.
I'm always happy to talk mushrooms. Identifying from photos can be tricky; here's a link with helpful tips to give it the best chance. I do work for various poison-control centers and am often tasked with identifying a mushroom from vomitus so with decent photos it's usually a comparative piece of cake! Autumn is the time for most of the best mushrooms, depending on where you live. I just returned from some weeks in PNW and that was pretty intense; their stuff can go through much of the winter. In Chicago, we still have a fair amount of stuff fruiting but we had a dry fall so it wasn't great. Northern Wisconsin is where I do most of my stuff and it's completely nuts typically from end of July through September.
Aw I'm really sorry you had to learn the hard way. I love the way some slippers provide a cuppy hood to shelter the precious pollinia.I tried to pop and flatten the dorsal. I know! I know! Super dumb move. I've learned my lesson with the butchering of this little lady.
I love mushrooms! Or at least I love hunting for them so I can take pics. Do you have a blog or photo site you'd like to share? I bet you have some good stories! I used to go to mycology fairs all the time just so I could attend lectures and see semi-fresh correctly identified samples in real life, but stopped going after it got trendy with the micro-dose lovin' gummy poppin' Instagram crowd.
Sorry, somehow I neglected to paste in the link: https://www.centraltexasmycology.org/blog/2020/7/17/photography-tips-for-mushroom-identification
I have done ten major mycology events this year as well as spent two weeks hunting and studying in Turkey. It has become a main focus of my life but I make sure to explain that every orchid represents one or more fungal partners! No blog, I just do mushroom ID via email, unofficially. There are many many Facebook groups that revel in mushroom ID; best to find one or more for your region but I do get around so I can usually get to genus, at least. I am a regular at Telluride Mushroom Festival, which is heavily countercultural; I have partaken of psychoactive mushrooms a few times and microdosed myself out of a depression a few years ago. My experience of them is that they can be a valuable medicine; most drugs can be abused but with mushrooms, people who take them too many times in a row tell me they stop doing anything after about a week. I do not support casual “party” use but in the right setting and dose they create a deeply spiritual, beautiful experience and can allow the mind to heal itself, open the walls we build to protect ourselves. Johns Hopkins has a longterm study showing benefits. There is a film called Fantastic Fungi, by Louis Schwartzberg, which is well worth watching for its beauty and for its illumination of how psychoactive mushrooms help people with terminal diagnoses. I’m not in any way trying to suggest that you ingest these mushrooms; North America has many wild species with psychoactive properties and so they are part of my study but not my main focus. They grow abundantly on the east and west coasts but are infrequent to absent in the Midwest. I understand your dismissal of that crowd but they are part of my life and I value their experience. I am a fan of the slogan “all mushrooms are magic,” so anything you send me will be treated with my best efforts.
I have done ten major mycology events this year as well as spent two weeks hunting and studying in Turkey. It has become a main focus of my life but I make sure to explain that every orchid represents one or more fungal partners! No blog, I just do mushroom ID via email, unofficially. There are many many Facebook groups that revel in mushroom ID; best to find one or more for your region but I do get around so I can usually get to genus, at least. I am a regular at Telluride Mushroom Festival, which is heavily countercultural; I have partaken of psychoactive mushrooms a few times and microdosed myself out of a depression a few years ago. My experience of them is that they can be a valuable medicine; most drugs can be abused but with mushrooms, people who take them too many times in a row tell me they stop doing anything after about a week. I do not support casual “party” use but in the right setting and dose they create a deeply spiritual, beautiful experience and can allow the mind to heal itself, open the walls we build to protect ourselves. Johns Hopkins has a longterm study showing benefits. There is a film called Fantastic Fungi, by Louis Schwartzberg, which is well worth watching for its beauty and for its illumination of how psychoactive mushrooms help people with terminal diagnoses. I’m not in any way trying to suggest that you ingest these mushrooms; North America has many wild species with psychoactive properties and so they are part of my study but not my main focus. They grow abundantly on the east and west coasts but are infrequent to absent in the Midwest. I understand your dismissal of that crowd but they are part of my life and I value their experience. I am a fan of the slogan “all mushrooms are magic,” so anything you send me will be treated with my best efforts.
Thank you so much for the link! I wish my phone took pics as good as these, but suspect I would only be able to achieve this level of detail with a DSLR.
I suppose I should be careful when I poo poo my experience with other fair-attendees . I too was young once and probably just as reckless. My description was poorly worded. I absolutely agree the mushroom is both a powerful spiritual and medicinal tool, but have an aversion to the "let's f around and find out" and broadcast it over a livestream types, which is why I also no longer attend music or beer festivals. It's hard to enjoy the subject matter, whether it be mushrooms, music or beer when people are being extra obnoxious for social media clout.
Fantastic Fungi is a beautiful film. Well done! Big fan!
They are!
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Aw no need to censor your opinions. I understand. I used mushrooms as a party drug three times in college and then not for 23 years, though I was picking them all the time for others. In 2018, I used them in a spiritual experience and one other time since then. I went from young and reckless to calculated, educated seeking. I would never use them casually again. The people I know using them now are mostly elderly; I’ve been a minder for multiple octogenarians, in singles and groups. One of the most beautiful experiences is seeing an elderly couple experience them together, holding hands and giggling in youthful wonderment. To each their own; no one should ever feel pressured to use a substance. I’m not a therapist and I don’t do anything but provide safety and information. I also don’t grow or sell them; if I find them, I don’t keep them. I found and started many patches in NYC and was part of group that inoculated municipal mulch piles with supersoakers. That was fun. Anyway, I’m glad you like the film. Louis has another film called Gratitude that’s also beautiful.
