Masses of red mushrooms popped on the needle-carpeted ground under our 27-year old white pine tree planting. (Not native trees, I know, but we did it so I could have the smell and sounds of New England here in Missouri when I’m older.)

It appears to be Emetic Russula or a related Russula, a poisonous mushroom that I identified from looking through my new copy of “Missouri’s Wild Mushrooms” published this year by the Missouri Dept. of Conservation. This new book is great. There a lots of mushroom ID books but it’s nice to finally have something so well done (by Maxine Stone) for Missouri. I pretty much stick with eating morels and chanterelles because they’re tasty and I know them. But it’s still interesting to know what’s new on the land. I guess we’ve have so much more rain than normal (it was 36″ of rain here so far for the year in early September versus a typical 36″ for a full year) that we’re seeing a lot more variety and quantities of mushrooms this fall.