Not A Mycologist

  With all of the rainy weather we have had this summer, there are some pretty funky looking mushrooms growing about the yard.  One expects that.  Let there be some type organic material (mulch, leaf litter, dirt, whatever), a bit of moisture and some heat and you have fungi.  Some of these mushrooms look pretty but are dangerous.  Some have a not so nice appearance but are supposedly edible.  There are also some that are just downright strange.

  One such strange mushroom decided to grow in an equally strange place.  Mark and Son have been doing a lot of work on the house and have left the scaffolding in place so they do not have to lug it out every day.  It was on that scaffolding that a weird little mushroom decided to grow.  While the innocuous looking little thing may seem innocent, it is eating the scaffolding board.  Uh, oh!  Say what?  Yep.  Mushrooms and fungi are sort of like garbage disposals.  They decompose organic materials.  The presence of this mushroom probably means that the board is starting to decompose or rot.  This is not good when you consider that two men will be standing on that scaffolding board.  Now consider that there is not a lot that can be done to remedy the situation as the spores have already infiltrated the wood.  There is to be a mushroom garden riding high above the ground on the scaffolding.

  I am no mycologist by far.  I can recognize a very few different types and know enough to not carelessly handle unknown mushrooms.  That is about it.  So....I tried to look up about this strange mushroom.  Since I needed a description, I figure color would be a start.  I looked up "black topped mushroom" and was immediately bombarded with stories of mushrooms pushing through asphalt.  Not quite what I wanted.  So...I tried again with "mushroom with black cap" and received dozens of sets of instructions on how to crochet a mushroom shaped cap.  Again, not what I had in mind.  After several tries, I found an image that was almost an exact copy but the mushroom grew in the Guadalupe Mountains.  No where did it say that it could be found here and, imagine this, it was called a "Blacktop Mushroom".  Well, duh!  I knew that!  Sort of.  Anyway, I still am no closer to identifying our scaffolding mushroom than I was when I found it.  That said, I will leave it be and definitely NOT have it for supper.