”Generally I feel like these beautiful monochrome mushrooms are much more solitary and always makes me think of an Emo look. It’s funny as my last Shaggy Ink post got a little nod to The Cure (the track I used was “The Forest”) and its similarity to lead singer Robert Smith was noticed by @theresawebb12 . Anyhow the fact I managed to film a ‘parliament of magpies’ got me quite excited as it’s very uncommon to find them in large groups like this.
GeorgeFlavour Fred
These are poisonous and saprophytic feeding on grass and tree debris and are found more often in alkaline soils. Bursting out from the ground in a similar structure to the Shaggy Inkcap before the stipe shoots and exposes itself then the bell shape cap is revealed with its white-silver pattern (remnants of a universal veil) sat over a deep dark shiny brown. Before it melts away. I mean 🥵
Inkcap’s don’t last too long before they deliquesce (to dissolve / melt away) and as you can see several are doing this as it’s part of the spire dispersal being that the liquid with spores is held in the air. Check YouTube link in comments for a time lapse of the Shaggy Inkcap – Very cool. I’d love to watch the Magpie Inkcap one day or capture it at least.
It was named the Coprinus (an eater of dung) picacea – that looks like Pica pica, the magpie, up until the early 2000’s when the genus was shown to have groups that only had distant relationships to one another (through DNA analysis) so has been dismantled somewhat. Now the Magpie Inkcap is in the genus Coprinopsis within the family Psathyrellaceae which points out its similarity to the Coprinus genus.
And yes it can also be used to make ink but I have not tried it as I love to observe them where they sit.
A great, partially very rainy day but wonderful all the same.
