Image #124 – From Little Helmets to Shaggy Manes

Reportedly it has been a bumper-crop-year for mushrooms in western North Carolina.  Lucky me!  A few days ago I posted Little Helmets, lovely white fungi that are about 2cm in height (about 3/4″). Today I present a 20+cm beauty, a Shaggy Mane (Coprinus comatus) discovered along the road to Wayah Bald.  Remarkably these two mushrooms are in the same family (Inky Cap or Coprinus)!  But they certainly present differently. The Little Helmets were all clustered together near a woodpile. The Shaggy Mane stood in solitary splendor at a hairpin curve on Wyaha Bald Road. ☙