Interesting mushroom names

In the last couple of weeks, we have had no internet, which means I have spent most of my time reading books and wandering around the new house. In my wandering, I found “The Audubon Society Field guide to North American Mushrooms”. I’m proud to say I can identify Russian mushrooms, at least – I grew up with regular mushroom hunts and can pick some for dinner without poisoning myself. American mushrooms, though – not so much.

The names of the mushrooms range from plain and descriptive (“Firm Russula”), to something that sounds like a disease (“Shingled Trich”, “Blue-Toothed Entoloma”), to just plain odd (“Big Laughing Gym”). In my boredom, I actually categorized and compiled several lists of the more interesting and odd names, which you can now read and enjoy. So, here we go:

The food-related names:

Alcohol Inky

Peppery milky

Sweetbread mushroom

Poison Pie (yum!)

Fried Chicken Mushroom (apparently it does taste like it)

Chocolate Milky

Chicken-fat Suillus

Apricot Jelly

Carnival Candy Slime

Witch’s Butter

Rooting Cauliflower mushroom

Animal-related names:

Salmon Unicorn Entoloma

Imperial Cat

Leaflike Oyster

Pig’s Ear Gomphus

Goat’s Foot

Yellow Rabbit Ears

Wolf’s Milk Slime

Stinky Squid

Lizard’s Claw

Parrot Mushroom

Panther

Fairy Tale and Folklore related names:

Witch’s Hat

Stuntz’s Blue Legs (assuming Stuntz was some folkloric person that I don’t know about)

Prince

Gypsy

Jack O’Lantern

Slippery Jill; Slippery Jack (Two different mushrooms, but I imagine them to be sort of the Bonnie and Clyde of the mushroom kingdom)

Old Man of the Woods

Angel’s Wings

Yellow Fairy Cups

Devil’s Urn

Elf cup

Pyxie Cup (yes, it was spelled like that)

Swamp Beacon

Velvety Fairy Fan

Dryad’s Saddle

Various Objects:

Fuzzy foot

Sulfur tuft

Yellow Oyster mop

Common Fiber Vase

Black Trumpet

Hemlock Varnish Shelf

Artist’s Conk

Indian Paint Fungus (apparently it was used to make war paint)

Hairy Parchment

Red Tree Brain

Velvet Blue Spread

Bladder cup (oh dear)

Tree-ear

Barometer Earthstar

Carbon balls

Wrinkled Thimble Cap

Yellow Tuning Fork

Shaggy Parasol (the best kind, really – that’s why Robinson Crusoe had one)

White Dunce Cap

Personification in some shape or form:

Dung-loving Psilocybe

Bleeding Mycena

Blushing Fiberhead

Sweating Mushroom

Pinecone Tooth

Bearded Tooth (aww…)

Many Headed Slime (sounds evil)

Brown-toothed crust (and disgusting)

Velvety Earth Tongue

Elegant Stinkhorn

Blue-toothed Entoloma

Morbid-sounding names:

Deadly Lawn Galerina

Death cap

Destroying Angel

Strangulated Amanita (probably killed by the Destroying Angel)

Poison Pie (again)

Lead Poisoner

Corpse Finder (according to the mushroom guide’s comments, the name is well deserved – it helped bring a murder to light and also grew on a buried box full of dead baby remains)

Dead Man’s Fingers

Others:

Tawny Grisette

Abruptly-bulbous Agaricus

Big Laughing Gym

Blewit

Pigskin Poison Puffball