Sunday, September 27, 2009

Pining for Sarcodon







Well the pic on the left is my rather beige hawk wing, sarcodon, which apparently was not found under a Pine tree, which is why it is yet again, a lovely shade of beige...lol...apparently the sarcodons which there are a few types, often give this beige, unless they are the correct type which is found under Pine trees...as I did not pick these or know this, I was ever hopeful for blue, alas, my search continues....
now the one next to it, the orange beige in the same photo, is coreopsis flowers, soaked way tooo long, but lovely in spite of myself... the sweet buttons of shrooms on the top are the sulfur tufts hypholoma fascicular, which I will be returning to pick tomorrow...They are such a lovely clear yellow dye producing shroom...
and the other two photos, are the phaeolus schweinitzi, or dyer's polypore, or butt rot, and these are quite the array of colours...the brightest yellow was from young ones chopped and soaked and then brought up to heat and then let sit overnight, strained, then wetted wool added, then again brought up to heat and taken off and sat overnight...so gold, the brightest yellow yet, the duller one beside it, was from older specimens, and cooked too long I think..."they" always say that with yellow you can dull it by boiling, perhaps this is why it is dull or perhaps it is the fact it is older, its a "crap shoot" so I am guessing...
the wonderful greens are all from the same phaeolus, but with a titch of iron and cot added after they were cooked...like 1/4 tsp, ferrous, and 2 tsp of cot...insta greens which I love....this could be one of my favourite polypores but I am a novice so who knows what is awaiting for me out there...and if it rains I will be out there again.....I do love the lobsters and cortinarius...I have many bags of cortinarius dried from last year, but am saving them until I have this years stash...
so the rains are coming I hear...and we are waiting.

2 comments:

=Tamar said...

There are some good details on dyeing for blue with sarcodon mushrooms on November 24, 2007 Leena's blog: Riihivilla, dyeing with natural dyes: dyeing with sarcodon squamosus. Pre-mordanting with alum and cream of tartar, using very old, rotted mushrooms, boiling for two hours, etc. I like the idea of a natural blue dye. Good luck.

Pat said...

what a grand search. and i am enjoying it vicariously....