When it rains, it pours. When it pours you get tons of mushrooms

This has to be the most bizarre June in New Jersey ever. Usually I will have my air conditioning blasting by now. Not this year, this year I has rained I think for 20 days straight and it is not warm at all. Weather like that is not untypical in Holland where I grew up. But I left Holland; one of the reasons was that the weather sucks in Holland. April and May are actually quite nice but the rest of the year it is more miss than hit. You will get that nasty drizzle that will last for days or it will just rain cats and dogs for a day straight.

When it rains a lot you will see that suddenly mushrooms pop out of the ground everywhere. The last couple of days I have taken a couple of pics. Click on the picture to get to the flickr page and you can leave a comment or look at the bigger size (if you are into that kind of thing)


The first mushroom is the bizarre looking Stinkhorn. Some people might think they look like some alien penises. I think this variety is the Mutinus caninus.



According to Wikipedia some parts are edible

The Dog Stinkhorn is probably edible at the ‘egg’ stage, but it is not recommended. At least one report from West Virginia in the eastern United States strongly recommends the 'eggs' peeled and fried as a tasty dish

No thank you.


Next up is the Amanita muscaria. This is a poisonous and psychoactive basidiomycete fungus.



From wikipedia

Amanita muscaria is now primarily famed for its hallucinogenic properties with its main psychoactive constituent being the compound muscimol. It was used as an intoxicant and entheogen by the peoples of Siberia and has a religious significance in these cultures.

Some late day sun gives the mushroom some 'warmth'