KimmyKokonut

So far I have heard many answers to the riddle. My coworkers have labelled it as a Trumpet Royale mushroom, which it sort of looks like except the cap is black and more domish with a thicker stem. I contacted a mycologist expert who tells me it is Lyophyllum decastes or “fried chicken mushroom,” which grows in packed gravel in clumps along roadsides. Hopefully not full of oil spills and car exhaust. But somehow I don’t think my mystery mushroom fills all the descriptors for this one either. My amateur identification for this mushroom is a Brown Beech Mushroom. A lot of photos show the cap to look sort of speckled, which my mushrooms weren’t, but on a looks for looks basis, I think I’m closest. On a taxonomy level, someone else is right. I wish I had better news but I have already eaten the evidence and survived. For now, I’ll believe it to be the Trumpet Royale, since that’s the sign on it at my grocery store.