I've never eaten any I've found fresh because I'm not usually very confident in my IDs but I do love cooking with the dried ones. They seem to rehydrate pretty close to fresh compared to other mushrooms.
Wasn't able to get a decent photo of the spores. On average they measured 46 x 2um and even in the eyepieces it was hard to make out any details. I did get a photo of some asci with the spores coiled up inside of them. You can actually see a free floating spore in this photo, the pineneedle shaped thing to the lower left of the scale bar, upper right of the central ascus.
Gills were more beige than cinnamon and spores were transparent under the scope. I wish I'd done a spore print but they shriveled up before I got home.
Not sure what they are, pretty sure I grabbed a couple so I could look at them later.
No plans to eat
Not looking for an ID but found in central BC
More information (if someone does want to take a crack)
Thanks, definitely a contender. The spot test could have been +yellow and just looked darker or simply wet because of the already yellow surface. The cap colour did look a lot more yellow than L. cascadensis/L. cordovaensis but seeing as there are so few available photos of those, it may not mean much (and some of the descriptions did mention a buff colour). Not sure if I'll get back to my spot before they're gone but I'll see if I can grab another for storage and another spot test.
Leave it to me to miss such a big detail, found in central British Columbia, Canada.
I did the spot test within 30 mins of picking, my KOH is 5% but a few months old so could be starting to lose its juice. L. repraesentaneus does seem the best fit, the spruce population was definitely lacking in the area but there were some within 20 metres or so.
Last photo is to show the rings on cap but I guess I didn't get any good photos of them because you can hardly make it out in that photo. I also put spores under the scope and nothing out of ordinary for Lactarius
Will post photos in the comments but here are some details:
The 'gills'
I listened to a lecture once and the presenter mentioned that these mushrooms aren't actually gilled and are actually pored mushrooms in the order Boletales that evolved gill-like structures.
Still getting the 'brain zaps' 3 years after quitting escitalopram (which when I first quit felt like someone gripping my head and shoving it forward really roughly but now just kind of feels like a muscle spasming in my brain?). No one believed me and, no offense to anyone who takes them, but I'll never do that to myself again.
Spinning wheels (at one point, I'm pretty rusty now)
Photo taken with a cheap digital scope. Soredia are a type of propagule found on lichens. I lichen them to a little 'seedship' made up of a few alga and/or bacteria loosely bound by the hyphae of the fungal partner. These propagules are carried off by wind, water, insects, etc. and contain everything needed to start a new colony if they end up in a suitable habitat. Sometimes soredia are spread out over certain parts of the thallus, but in this case they are being dispersed by the soralia erupting on the ridges of this lichen.
Another type of propagule similar to soredia are isidia. Instead of being a loose bundle, isidia have a cortex encasing the symbiont cells. I imagine this type of propagule lasts longer than one more exposed to the elements. I have always had trouble identifying isidia, I have seen photos of large, warty looking isidia but have yet to see them myself. I'm probably over looking them.
Some of our local Lobaria pulmonaria absolutely thriving in an old growth park. The park is full of these large, gnarly old birch trees and many of them have these massive colonies growing on them. They don't always look like much when desiccated but if you catch them after a rain storm they are stunning. I've read that L. pulmonaria has to live to an age of about 25 years to be able to produce propagules.
Found a few weeks ago, always wondered when these came up in my area.
Spore photo taken at 600x magnification on a Swift 380T.
Here are the spores, I just couldn't manage a decent photo of them with my cheap microscope.