I know what you mean about not finding helpful resources on the internet.

You might have better luck by visiting one of the local libraries to sit down at a table with a few field guides. Were these taken somewhere around Beaufort/Hilton Head, my home for over twenty years?

I have The National Audubon Field Guide to Mushrooms, a Peterson's guide, and yet one more I can't remember......all packed away in boxes awaiting the remodling of my office. :-(

do not rely on strangers.. to ID edibles for you ...

and do not rely on them to go looking for your pix.... post them with in the post itself...

look for an HTML code.. and paste it where you type.. and on review.. if you see it.. we will see it ...

try to find a local mushroom club... they really are the LOCAL experts ... its for your protection ....

ken

What about local university/extension? Might be some knowledgeable folks there.

This looks promising...

Here is a link that might be useful: SC Mycological Society

Thanks, rhizo- these were found in the Charleston area- not too far from your old stomping grounds. And I agree that field guides can be useful, but I don't have any for fungi. Besides which, I always seem to miss the answer when paging through books on topics that I am unfamiliar with. For me FG's are really only helpful if you know enough to know where to start...

Ken, thanks for the warning, but I just want to know what's growing back there- I don't intend to eat them. Even if they did look more appetizing than they do! And I usually do post photos directly to the forums, but there were more than a few photos, and it seemed easier to post the link in case anyone did feel like looking.

Carolb, thanks for the link... I actually started by contacting SCUMS even though they're in a different part of the state. I did get a response that I could post photos on their FB page if I wanted to, but I'm not on FB, and don't want to join.

I did find an e-mail for someone in my area who supposedly will ID fungi- I'll try that approach and hope the contact info is still good.

Thanks anyway,
Virginia

(Virginia, I wrote this before you updated, but will post it anyway.)

I am not knowledgeable about mushrooms, but I like them and have some books and some links. One of the links you might find helpful:

This U.S. site has a key to major mushroom groups; then from that page, there are additional keys for each of the groups:
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/major_groups.html

I don't know how much luck you will have identifying the mushrooms in your photos. Most of your photos do not show the underside of the particular mushroom (vital for the question of gills or no gills, also how the cap joins the stem, etc.). And flickr prevents me from enlarging your photos to more than about 200-250%. For real experts, maybe these drawbacks will not prevent them from identifying some of your mushrooms; I don't know.

Here you can find contact info for your county's Cooperative Extension office. They should have info about local mushroom groups, etc.
http://www.clemson.edu/extension/county/index.html

Virginia, there used to be a mushroom society in Charleston. The local extension office would have that information. It's located on Meeting St.

Thanks, missing, for the link- I'll try playing around with it to see what I can find out. Some links I've found looked promising until I realized they were concerned with a limited geographical area- somewhere else! There are so many good and easy-to-use online resources for other branches of natural history that I'm a little spoiled, and used to being able to find ID's using a Google image search if there isn't an authoritative web site.

I realize that my photos don't show everything that might be needed for a definitive ID- I was kinda hoping that these were either common enough or distinctive enough fungi that someone might recognize them right away...

rhizo, I'm not sure that there's an active mushroom society here- if so, they don't have much of an online presence. The e-mail I found for local ID's may be current- I'm going to give it a try.

Best regards,
Virginia

Here is a link that might be useful: North American Mycological Societies

The purple ones toward the bottom of the pics look like
Cortinarius iodes to me.
The very first ones sorta resemble honey mushrooms past there prime and in the process of decomposition.
The all green ones may be green jelly baby mushrooms.

Thanks, dirt_farmer, for having a look.

I did hear back from the local expert, and he suggested that the first mushroom was Hypholoma fasciculare.

I also thought Cortinarius iodes for the purplish ones, but he limited his ID to Cortinarius species, so I guess it might be iodes, but it might also be a relative.

I was thinking Leotia atrovirens for the green mushrooms, but he said Leotia lubrica, and it does seem that there's some question about the Leotia species and their names since DNA sampling has called the traditional classifications into question. But yes, it's a green jelly-baby of some sort.

It's the small skinny ones with the black caps that have me stumped, though...

Thanks again,
Virginia

Do you remember were you picked those skinny mushrooms with black caps ? If they were attached to an underground false truffle they may be Cordyceps capitata.
If you come across them again you might want to gentle dig up whats under the mushrooms and see if anything is being parasitied .

Do you remember were you picked those skinny mushrooms with black caps ? If they were attached to an underground false truffle they may be Cordyceps capitata.
If you come across them again you might want to gentle dig up whats under the mushrooms and see if anything is being parasitied .

dirt_farmer, I got an e-mail from the local expert and he also suggested C capitata. After some Googling, I found a photo taken in FL that looked very familiar. The caption mentioned the false truffle association, so I went out in the yard, found a few of the mushrooms and dug 'em up. And there was a truffle-ish thing in the ground that was supporting the mushrooms. So cool!

Now, if only I could find some pecan truffles under our pecan tree...

Thanks again,
Virginia