I found this warty mushroom growing at the base of a longleaf pine on the VSU campus. It's boletellus ananas, an odd bolete due to the presence of a veil remnant on its warty red cap, but it's a little dried out so the cap has dulled.
This shows the classic blue staining qualities that many boletes possess. Just behind them, drying porcinis, and just behind that, the base of a glass of cab and a sliver of my swiss army knife.
Last week I went to the Mostel estate and picked mushrooms with Aileen and Jane Whitehead (an Etruscan scholar). Most weren't edible, though one bolete was tasty sauteed in butter. We found two deadly destroying angels, too, but the highlight was a mushroom giant, the macrocybe titans, growing near their house (photo by the Mostels). These can grow to enormous proportions (larger than two feet tall) in Central America and Mexico, but in North Florida they tend to stop at dinner plate size. They are supposedly edible, but one commentator described their cooking smell as something akin to "dirty laundry," so we left it to sporulate.
Note: reports on mushrooms that I found and/or cooked represent my personal experiences, and in no way should be taken as recommendations for readers. This is not a guidebook. Eat wild mushrooms at your peril.
