Unidentified mushrooms, possibly agrocybe praecox

Patches of these mushrooms were clustered around the bases of landscape olive trees in Yorba Linda this morning.  I should have put something in the photo for a better idea of scale, or turned over one of the mushrooms!

Agrocybe praecox? or maybe Pholiotina sp.?

Young mushroom

This mushroom popped up in a penstemon I bought at the Fullerton College plant sale a few weeks ago, and was planting yesterday.  The spore print is a little smeared -- the cap dried up and shrank to much less than a quarter of its original size during the time I was taking the print (overnight) -- but is clearly black in color.

Perhaps Coprinopsis friesii or one of the Parasola plicatilis group?

False parasol mushroom

The false parasol (Chlorophyllum molybdites) is a very common and very toxic mushroom, often found in Southern California lawns.  Because its appearance is similar to the edible parasol mushroom, and because it is so often found in lawns, it is one of the most commonly-consumed poisonous mushrooms in North America. Apparently it will not kill you if eaten, but will make you very uncomfortably sick, with vomiting and diarrhea, so is best avoided altogether.

Interestingly, when I picked the mushroom, it looked like this,

and by the next morning the cap had opened and spread to this,

The brown scales had also begun to flake off -- it often looks like this while growing.

The ruler I used was not the best for this lighting, obviously -- this particular mushroom is about 4 inches (10cm) long, but can be found larger or smaller.

A distinctive characteristic of the false parasol is the greenish spores, which are beginning to be apparent in the photo, and came out quite clearly in the spore print I made -- the name "chlorophyllum" comes from the Latin chloro, green, + phyllum, gills.

For further reference, and other pictures to help you identify this toxic mushroom, see the Wikipedia article "Chlorophyllum molybdites", Tom Volk's "Fungus of the month" for August 1999, the C. molybdites pages at California Fungi and Urban Mushrooms.

An unidentified mushroom

An unidentified mushroom, found near our compost pile this afternoon, under a very large and spreading pine tree. It has a distinctly purple cast to the cap, which intensified since I picked it. It measures about 3.5 cm from the soil line to the top of the cap, and about 2.5 cm across at the widest point. It might be somewhat old, as it feels rather harder than might be expected. Possibly a blewit (Clitocybe nuda)?

Unidentified mushroom

We picked this mushroom from around the roots of a street magnolia on the way to school this morning.  We tried to make a spore print, but either left it sitting too long or the mushroom was too damp, as the paper became waterlogged and there was no readable imprint.

Unidentified mushroom

This specimen was about 2.5 in/6 cm across with brown gills; it was found growing under a pine tree.  We tried to make a spore print to aid in identifying it, but it was too dry.

For keys to identifying mushrooms, try MushroomExpert.