Purple Mushrooms!

So I’m sure a lot of people will just be confused when I tell them I found a real coup for mycology hobbyists everywhere. It’s not a choice edible, nor is it magical or medicinal. I found what I believe to be a cortinarius occidentalis.

We were walking up our hill after a long early winter hike along the creek edge. (This area is nearly impenetrable sans machete any time except for the winter vegetative die off) and my husband said hey here’s some mushrooms.

I audibly squealed when I saw them and I’m pretty sure my husband thought I was crazy until I flipped one over to reveal it’s stunning and vibrant lilac-colored gills. Why was I so enthused? A few reasons:

• Purple mushrooms don’t get spotted very often. They’re typically not the fun color of these gills all the way through. Note that these were a gray purple blue on top.
• Purple mushrooms just aren’t terribly common in general. Some laccaria and blewits are more common in other areas but we haven’t seen any til this on our property.
• Myco nerds tend to love them. They’re just really exciting to find. Very few things in nature are this color and it was a real treat finding these.

So behold in all its glory. I hope to find more as our canopy continues to rise but in all honesty, I’ll come back to the spot we found these every winter and see if we didn’t get some more just for the joy of the pop of purple.

And now a couple weeks after we saw them I can show you them a little more mature. They’ve lost some of their vibrancy and true violet hue in their gills in favor of a darker mauve, and the bell shape on top has become much more pronounced.