MYCOLOGY: A seasonal name

A reader sent me two photos of a "very pretty" orange mushroom that she spotted growing along Cedar Springs Road in New Garden Township. She said her grandson tentatively ID'd it as the poisonous Jack O'Lantern mushroom (Omphalotus olearius).

 

 

I'm no mycologist, but I believe he's right. I also found this amusing story from Michael Kuo (MushroomExpert.com) about this species:

"The Jack O'Lantern is the focus of the largest and most insidious conspiracy in the mycological world. According to every field guide, and every other source of literature available for the species, its gills glow in the dark. I'm not making this up; pick up any mushroom book that describes the Jack O'Lantern, and you'll find the author coolly mentioning the "luminescence" of the gills, or telling stories about 19th-Century pioneers finding their way back to their cabins, in the dark, following the Jack O'Lantern's glowing gills.

All of these authors are lying, and they are in cahoots. See, what they enjoy is knowing that hundreds of amateur mushroomers, every fall, shut themselves into closets, bathrooms, and garages, eagerly peering through the darkness for hours, waiting for the Jack O'Lantern's gills to luminesce."