SheldonTimes

After returning from the Forest Trail with several specimens, I set them up on the cook stand at our Pocomoke River State Park campsite where I could take some photos and collect spore prints. Lesson learned: rain and wind are not ideal conditions for making spore prints.

We arrived at our campsite at Milburn Landing, Pocomoke River State Park, at dusk, and it was dark when we went up to the ranger station to register, but that didn't preclude mushroom spotting. An Amanita practically glowed in the reflection of the station's security lights, although it was a few yards away, in a stand of loblolly pines. Why didn't I take my camera?

We hadn't completed even half of the Forest Trail on the first day of our Eastern Shore trip, so on the last day we went back to see if we could finish the job. Not a chance. We were far too busy feasting our eyes on a dozen or so more new-to-us mushrooms species to make any time hiking.

Pemberton Park was one of my favorite parks to visit with my two young sons when I lived in Salisbury, and we went there often.

Bald Cypress Trail at Pocomoke River State Park offers three different types of forest, a bald cypress swamp, loblolly pine grove, and a mixed hardwood forest, all in just one easy-to-hike mile. Of course the warm rainy weather had brought out lots of mushrooms we had to stop to see, and it was pouring rain, so it took us two hours to make the loop.

The Forest Trail crosses a swampy area of bald cypress before entering a forest of mostly loblolly pine. The loblollies don't crowd each other, so visibility is excellent. Even from a distance we could easily spot chalk-white mushrooms that

Dunning Pond is a beaver pond a few miles up Dunning Brook trail off Route 30 north of Wells, NY. As the weather continued to be rainy, we decided to day hike to Dunning Pond, delaying our backpacking trip another day. The hillside trail follows the brook generally, but at a distance, and from time to time there are some nice views of the brook below.

We attended our first mushroom foray this weekend, the Annual Victor Gambino Foray held this year

Deep in the woods of Granville State Forest in south-central Massachusetts, our eyes were opened to the magical world of mushrooms. (No, they weren't "magic" mushrooms.