On August 22nd I was doing some work in Barrie Ontario. This is some 160 km from my home in north-east direction. I finished a little earlier than expected and on my way home visited one of the forests surrounding Barrie.

As a general rule, more North you go in Ontario it is easier to find crown lands and regional forests that allow mushrooming. Barrie is surrounded with excellent mixture of forested areas. Some of them are natural and some were planted in the second half of 20th century. Planted areas are usually pines.

The area I visited is situated north west of Barrie. And what a treat that was!

The forest is mixed woods with hardwoods and conifers relatively evenly distributed. On the bases of my previous visits I expected to find some lobster mushropoms.  I did find couple, but the host species (Lactarius and Rusulla) were quite present, especially Lactifluus piperatus.  Therefore I expect in September much more of the lobsters around.

During my short visit I found a great variety and great numbers of mushrooms,

Chanterelles

Under some coniferous trees I found half a dozen of beautiful Cantharellus cibarius, the most common chanterelle species.

In the mosses under hardwoods there were several small clusters of  Craterellus tubaeformis (common name is yellow foot chanterelle). This one is real rarity in my area of South-Western Ontario. This species was formerly known as Cantharellus tubaeformis. Excellent edible.

Hedgehog

The hedgehog mushroom (Haydnum repandum) is common mushroom in the hardwoods in my area, but it is not widely spread. Some years I find only several of them. They are usually 5-6 cm and always completely free of bugs.  Excellent edible, one of my very favorites. The ones I found here were giants, probably 2,5 times bigger than ones I am used to. As an illustration there is an image of how they look on my big dinner plate. Needless to say they were quickly consumed.

Leotia Lubrica (Common Jelly Baby)

I encounter jelly baby mushroom quite frequently. It is easy to miss, but here I found big areas covered with clumps of this smallish sac fungi.

Retiboletus ornatipes

The forest floor was covered with scattered ornate-stalk bolete. In my area this mushrooms are usually bug free, but here almost all of them were buggy and not worth picking.

Corals

The corals were the biggest surprise. The whole forest floor was literally covered with them in different stages of growth. They do not form fairy rings, but rather grow in rows. The coloring varied, but tans and golden colors were prevalent. In my years of mushrooming I have never seen anything similar to this explosion of fungi.