Ink cap seems to be one of the more known species of mushroom, perhaps because it is pretty widespread in this region. This one is the fairy ink cap. I see three general colors on the top of the fairy ink cap's umbrella: beige on the outermost, creme white in the middle, and dull brown/orange at the center. Genus coprinus have black spores, so on the other side of the umbrella is quite black. The ink caps on the photo is quite young, which I learned that for mushrooms the expansion of umbrella is the surest sign of maturity rather than its size. These ink caps have not fully spread apart but when they do the gills melt as the overall shape becomes flatter.
Another strange mushroom with black on it growing out of some rocks. It was surprisingly big and tall.
Older, taller shaggy mane than the shorter, fatter and younger ones next to it. Darker cap.
Strange mushrooms growing on a sidewalk in some decorative rocks. They looked kind of like eggs to me. I thought they might be small Shaggy Mane?
The genus Coprinus is a small genus of mushrooms consisting of Coprinus comatus (the shaggy mane) and several of its close relatives. Until 2001, Coprinus was a large genus consisting of all agaric species in which the lamellae autodigested to release their spores. (The black ink-like liquid this would create gave these species their common name "inky cap".) Molecular phylogenetic investigation found that Coprinus comatus was only a distant relative of the other members of Coprinus,...
