Here’s a little mushroom that has two of the strangest, most divergent common names in Fungiland.
It’s called a “Plums and Custard Mushroom” in England, apparently because it looks like that dessert. It’s called a “Variegated Mop Mushroom” in the United States, apparently because it’s genus is TricholoMOPsis. (Capitals added; two other mushrooms in that genus are also called “Mops” in the U.S.) In all places, mycologists call this dessert species by its scientific name, Tricholomopsis rutilans.
It almost always appears on dead coniferous wood, which it helps to decay.
Our thanks go to David Porter, the Maine Mushroom Maven, for identifying this little fellow. (Brooklin, Maine)