Mushrooms

A friend from church regularly picks edible mushrooms while strolling through the woods. Since he's still alive, I guess he knows what he's doing. I love mushrooms, and would really like to be able to find edible varieties in the wild. However, every mushroom identification guide I've looked at includes a list of "poisonous look-a-likes" along with each edible species. The thought of a possible fatal mis-identification keeps me obtaining my mushrooms from the grocery store.

These mushrooms look almost good enough to eat, but I decided to just enjoy their visual beauty. They were growing on the side of a decaying log I found while looking for wild flowers along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I haven't looked them up to identify them; they're probably not edible anyway. (Click on photo to enlarge.)