MycoBank Taxonomy: Fungi, Dikarya, Basidiomycota, Agaricomycotina, Agaricomycetes, Polyporales, Fomitopsidaceae, Laetiporus 

Laetiporus sulphureus is a magnificent mushroom, easily identifiable by its bright yellow pore surface and overlapping, shelf-like growth on the standing or fallen trunks of hardwoods. It might just be my all-time favorite mushroom. The young mushrooms check all the boxes of a great wild edible: 

• Easy to identify (no poisonous lookalikes, beginner-friendly)
• Impressive appearance
• Fantastic taste, versatile, and wonderful texture (like chicken, lobster, or crab)
• Often found in large to enormous quantities
• Typically easy to clean
• Reappears in the same spot year after year 
• Money maker

That's right, if you find a mega flush, there will likely be more chicken than you can eat yourself and others will be eager to buy it from you. In Ann Arbor, chicken of the woods fetches about $16 a pound. The flush documented here, which I found when the mushrooms were just starting to bubble out of a large downed trunk, yielded about 50 pounds of tender chicken over the span of a week. 

MycoBank Taxonomy: Fungi, Dikarya, Basidiomycota, Agaricomycotina, Agaricomycetes, Polyporales, Polyporaceae, Noefavolus

Mushrooms referred to as the hexagonal-pored polypore, or Neofavolus alveolaris, are common and widespread across eastern North America in the spring. They can persist through the summer, fall, and even into the winter, becoming hardened and bleached over time. Despite the common name, the pores are rarely perfectly hexagonal, instead usually vaguely and irregularly polygonal. Regardless, the hairy/scaly orange cap and large, elongated pores make this mushroom easily recognizable – that is, if we actually knew what we were identifying. Neofavolus alveolaris represents a number of cryptic species, which may not be all that suprising given that name has been applied to similar mushrooms occurring in temperate and boreal areas across the entire Northern Hemisphere (Sotome et al. 2013).

Mycobank Taxonomy: Fungi, Dikarya, Basidiomycota, Agaricomycotina, Agaricomycetes, Agaricomycetidae, Agaricales, Psathyrellaceae, Coprinellus

Coprinellus truncorum (or more commonly referred to as C. micaceus - more about that later) is an inky cap, which means before you know it, the mushroom will enzymatically digest itself in a soppy process called deliquescence. Inky caps are really the milquetoasts of the mushroom world, turning into complete mush soon after fruiting. Deliquescence is much more than feebleness, though. It is a process of spore dispersal that has evolved independently in multiple lineages of mushrooms. Deliquescence starts at the edge of the cap and moves towards the stem. Meanwhile, the spores mature in the same pattern, but one step ahead of the destructive enzymes. As a result, mature spores are always at the edge of the dissolving cap - a perfect position to catch air currents for dispersal. If you are interested in learning more about inky caps and their taxonomy, check out Michael Kuo's page on the topic.