Lactarius

I’ve always coveted a photograph like those I see in field guides: a mushroom with big milky beads dripping from its gills.

Finally!

Lactarius, the milk cap. We saw good milk cap conditions along the Montana/ Idaho border at the end of June. It sounds like you don’t want to eat ones with white or clear “latex,” as seen above, no matter how tasty they look.

But the “bleeding” milk cap, which hardly requires an explanation,

or the one that leaks an orange juice look-alike

are good for the picking. Which I did, cooked, and ate.

After enjoying these things so much I prepared myself to head back east of the continental divide and never see them again. It was with great satisfaction, then, that I did find a small (but wormy) patch in some low-elevation lodgepole forest in the Crazies.

Here’s my proof:

The language of landscape is our native language. –Anne Whiston Spirn

I am on the edge of mysteries and the veil is getting thinner and thinner.
–Louis Pasteur

The only safe thing is to take a chance.
–Elaine May