Seasonal Mushrooms

 Amidse the panic and frenzy that was my midterms week came a moment of calm when Kathryn insisted I come out (and bring my macro lens) to see a secret she had to share. After a short walk we came to a frequently trod corner of Stanley Park which had become home to an astonishing variety of mushrooms in a very small area. The brown woody one below is the outlier which we are unable to identify, but any amateur mycologists are welcome to chime in via the comments.

 We looked this one up in our mushroom guide and believe it is a Fragile Russula which are apparently inedible, not that we'd really want to be cooking anything that turned up a few meters from the parking lot in the first place.

 Fans of Super Mario Brothers and the Grateful Dead alike can probably recognize this Fly Amanita mushroom, famous for both giving you an extra hitpoint against flying turtles and being a hallucinogen. Although it has a proud history amongst Siberian shamans and is apparently quite popular at rural Lithuanian wedding feasts, we decided to only enjoy it through our camera.

While it is supposed to be good for killing flies (hence Fly Amanita), it is potentially very dangerous as well and was a favorite poison during the Roman era.