I’ve been watching this fruit here for about 5 years now, every fall except the year the laneway was redone. This year’s 3 specimens look very healthy despite the drought. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is the only wild Grifola frondosa documented west of the Rockies since one was found in Victoria in the 1970’s. Paul Kroeger assisted me in submitting a specimen to the UBC herbarium from a few years back, and checking the databases of recorded occurrences.
These ones grow from the base of a large, old red oak tree, which was probably planted around the time the first settlers’ houses were built in the neighbourhood. Likely the mycelium was already present in the young transplant. The tree looks healthy despite the presumably long term infection of its butt by this mushroom.
If you find this mushroom please respect it and do not take it (at least not all of it). I have taken a culture from it, as has my friend Farhad Zahir of Livespore/Fungisle, who has successfully fruited it indoors and outdoors. I have yet to fruit the culture myself.
Note that I have changed the location (obviously not growing in the middle of Trout Lake, nor anywhere in that park), but it is in East Vancouver, BC on Coast Salish Territories, just a few blocks from my home.
I made a mushroom observer observation of a decomposing specimen the first year I saw it.
Dozens of fruiting bodies scattered about, growing singly and often in clumps.
Host unclear, potentially an ornamental Magnolia. Microscopy stained with Meltzer's reagent. Micrometer for spores at 40X, each tick 2.9 um.
Michael Kuo: "...for the time being identifications of Strobilomyces species on our continent should be seen as tentative; we know there will be new species, but we don't know how many there will be, or whether they will be easily separable without a DNA laboratory. Before DNA studies, Weber (1985) thought that "[a]bout four taxa in the genus Strobilomyces occur" in the southern United States alone (although she only described two and alluded to a third). An extensive study devoted to North American collections is clearly needed." https://www.mushroomexpert.com/strobilomyces.html
Growing in oak and palm forest in coastal SC
Under an sweet gum tree