Don't adjust your monitors! Sometimes mushrooms are hard to see, barely popping up, camouflaged in with the leaves and branches. When I lead walks I often get asked, "How did you see that mushroom?!" I guess after years of looking for our little fungal friends, you develop an eye for them. A mushroom eye, if you will. (Not to be confused with a cauliflower ear.)
No mushroom eye was needed for this one however. There, coming up amongst the ferns and a patch of partridge berry, were a handful of Orange-gilled Waxy Caps. Just an inch or two high, their bright yellowish-orange color betrayed them on the forest floor. The waxy cap is a good name for many of the mushrooms in the Hygrocybe family as they look to be built from candle wax or some of those lousy, waxy candies we had as kids. Hygrocybes come in many shades of reds, yellows, oranges, whites, and even green! (Parrot Waxy Cap).
You can get more info on the Hygrocybes, along with a bunch of cheery, bright photos, at MushroomExpert.com.
Photo taken at Mass Audubon's Habitat Sanctuary in Belmont, MA. September, 2003.
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