Yashroom Photography: Fungi of New York

Yashroom Photography: Fungi of New York Well... MOSTLY fungi (slime molds, too) of New York... but I wanted to keep the title short 😀

I like to take pictures of fungi. Sometimes they come out good.

I like to share their beauty.

So... this is why this fungus is called Dead Man's Fingers. ☠Spoooookyyyy!!📍Inwood (Manhattan), New York City📅 May 2026
06/17/2026

So... this is why this fungus is called Dead Man's Fingers. ☠

Spoooookyyyy!!

📍Inwood (Manhattan), New York City
📅 May 2026

🔥Fiery cap, black legRhizomarasmius pyrrhocephalus is a tiny marasmioid mushroom, the kind of delicate forest-floor fung...
06/16/2026

🔥Fiery cap, black leg

Rhizomarasmius pyrrhocephalus is a tiny marasmioid mushroom, the kind of delicate forest-floor fungus most people step past without noticing. It grows on leaf litter and woody debris in hardwood forests. 🪵🍂

The “fire cap” part makes sense right away: the cap is orange to orangish brown, sitting on a long, tough stem that darkens to brown or black and is often densely hairy. That stem can also be deeply rooted into the substrate, like the mushroom is anchored below the leaf litter. That's where "rhizo-", which means root, in the genus name comes from.

This species has excellent timing. It has been described as one of the first gilled mushrooms to appear in spring and one of the last to stop fruiting in fall, which is a pretty good strategy for a small decomposer working the litter layer. 🌧️

📍Inwood (Manhattan), New York City
📅 May 2026

Coprinellus radians, the firerug inkcap. 📍Northwest Bronx, New York City📅 June 2025
05/23/2026

Coprinellus radians, the firerug inkcap.

📍Northwest Bronx, New York City
📅 June 2025

This cute lil' dude was growing right by the side of a trail. Pleasant smell, not sure how to describe... not typical mu...
12/23/2025

This cute lil' dude was growing right by the side of a trail. Pleasant smell, not sure how to describe... not typical mushroomy smell... maybe anise? Odors are notoriously difficult to describe accurately. Give a mushroom like this to five people, ask them to describe the smell, and they may well give you five different answers (I've seen that happen once!).

Mushrooms in the genus Clitocybe are those pale, funnel-shaped things with gills that run down the stem and a white spore print. They are common on the forest floor in leaf litter and sometimes in grass.

The name Clitocybe comes from Greek words meaning “sloping head”, referring to the shallow funnel shape that many species develop as they age.

📍North Bronx, New York City
🗓 September 2025

Here's a gorgeous example of a mushroom from the genus Mycena, commonly known as "Bonnets." They can also be hard to ide...
12/22/2025

Here's a gorgeous example of a mushroom from the genus Mycena, commonly known as "Bonnets."

They can also be hard to identify to species. If you know what this one is, let me know!

📍North Bronx, New York City
🗓 May 2025

Some gorgeous guttation (liquid released by the mushroom... just found out some call it "mycosweat" 😊) on this Fomitopsi...
12/20/2025

Some gorgeous guttation (liquid released by the mushroom... just found out some call it "mycosweat" 😊) on this Fomitopsis spraguei. The common name is "Green cheese polypore" because it bruises grayish green when fresh.

📍North Bronx, New York City
🗓 July 2025

When gills go rogue. 🍄⚠️See those chunky folds and gills up on top of the cap? That is not a new species. That is a "ros...
12/17/2025

When gills go rogue. 🍄⚠️

See those chunky folds and gills up on top of the cap? That is not a new species. That is a "rosecomb mutation" (rosecomb is that red thing on top of the head of chickens and some other birds). 🐔

The more accurate, but less common term is "rosecomb disease" because it (probably) has nothing to do with changes to the DNA, but rather how it's expressed. Kinda like a tumor.

In a normal mushroom, the gills stay tucked neatly on the underside of the cap. In rosecomb, parts of the gill-forming tissue get scrambled and start growing on the outside, making lumps, ridges, and upside-down gills.

🏭 Commercial growers first described rosecomb as a deformity that shows up as distortions and gills on top of the cap. They often traced it to contamination with oil, diesel, or other distillate fumes in the growing room or substrate.

Today it is usually thought of as an environmental disturbance rather than a true inherited mutation. Vapors from disinfectants or other chemicals, pollutants in soil, or other non-pollution stresses can interfere with normal development and flip the growth pattern.

📍North Bronx, New York City
🗓 July 2025

Brick caps glow green under UV light!They already look stunning, like the ones in yesterday's post, but shining a UV lig...
12/15/2025

Brick caps glow green under UV light!

They already look stunning, like the ones in yesterday's post, but shining a UV light on them makes them look downright spooky!

📍Inwood (Manhattan), New York City
🗓 November2025

🍂One of my favorite shots from this fall 😍 Totally worth getting caught in the rain for. These are Brick Caps (Hypholoma...
12/14/2025

🍂One of my favorite shots from this fall 😍

Totally worth getting caught in the rain for.

These are Brick Caps (Hypholoma lateritium)

📍Inwood (Manhattan), New York City
🗓 November 2025

⚠️WARNING: A tasty invader!!! 😋You might've seen in in stores or farmer's markets, and now it's out in the wild. This is...
12/12/2025

⚠️WARNING: A tasty invader!!! 😋

You might've seen in in stores or farmer's markets, and now it's out in the wild. This is the golden oyster mushroom (Pleurous citrinopileatus).

Golden oysters look cheerful and taste great, but the new research behind this article treats them as a bright yellow warning sign. They are native to eastern Asia and were brought to North America as a tasty, easy-to-grow mushroom for home kits and farms in the early 2000s.

Some of those cultivated mushrooms escaped. Spores from kits, outdoor-inoculated logs or commercial operations appear to have reached nearby forests. By around 2010, golden oysters were showing up on wild trees, and they are now found across much of eastern North America.

In a study published this year, researchers sampled dead elm trees around Madison, Wisconsin. They compared the fungal communities inside trees that had golden oysters with trees that did not. Using a special type of gene sequencing, they could see which fungi were present, not just the ones visible on the surface.

The result: when golden oysters were present, the wood held about half as many fungal species, and the mix of species was different. Some native wood-decay fungi were missing from invaded trees.

Because fungi drive decomposition, nutrient cycling and even potential new medicines, losing that diversity matters. The authors argue that invasive fungi, not just plants and animals, need to be part of the global invasive-species conversation. Golden oysters have already been flagged as invasive in parts of Europe, and climate models suggest they could spread much farther in North America as conditions warm.

Their bottom line is simple: enjoy fungi, but think carefully before releasing non-native species into the wild, even if they arrive in something as innocent-looking as a grow kit.

📍 North Bronx, New York City
🗓 April 2025

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