Smol dump of 'the best of autumn 2023' in mushrooms

In no particular order, here are some photos of mushrooms I've foraged or simply spotted, and some dishes I've made out of them, over the past couple of months.

First off, some gorgeous (both to look at and eat) amethyst chanterelles!

Blue elf cups, which colour the wood they infest with the same colour. Apparently it's much sought-after by people who work with inlaid wood.

A tiny, perfect blusher (Amanita rubescens). They're one of several edible species in this genus, which also includes the mushrooms responsible for the vast majority of deadly poisonings. I used to eat them fairly regularly but have gone off them, for some reason. They're still very pretty, though.

A crop of Butyriboletus appendiculatus (butter or oak bolete), a good edible almost on a part with the cep/penny bun, sliced out for the dehydrator, plus some blackberries.

Most likely a mushroom in the genus Caloboletus - beautiful colours but inedibly bitter.

Golden chanterelles, a close relative of the amethyst chants in the first photo. It's been a bumper year for these guys.

A kilo of mostly chanterelles, plus some puffballs and a few other odds and sods.

My wee lad (aged nearly four, to give some idea of the size!) with a giant puffball. This beast weighed nearly 1.5 kg!

Hen-of-the-woods, known as maitake in Japan, where it's considered a delicacy (and with good reason). Weighed the better part of 2 kg, although I picked one from the same tree a few years ago weighing well over 5 kg.

A couple of orange oak boletes. Edible, but not quite in the penny bun class. These were well past their best anyway, so I left them to the beetles and slugs.

A nice little panther cap (Amanita pantherina), in the same genus as the blusher (see above) and fly agaric (see below).

OH YEAH BABY! Parasol mushrooms (Macrolepiota procera). Probably my all-time favourite. Absolutely delicious and often huge. The biggest ones here were about 30 cm across, and they're about that tall, too.

My foraging basket after being packed with parasols.

I wasn't kidding about the size of them!

A first for me: using slices of giant puffball as pizza bases.

They were tasty, but lost a lot of, uh, integrity upon cooking, making them hard to serve without a good deal of splurge...

A redfoot or scarletina bolete. Crazy colouring on these, although if cooked well they're very tasty.

A tiny fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) - the famous fairytale toadstool. They usually have white spots, although these can be washed off by rain. Only saw a few this year; last autumn they went mad, for some reason.

A winter chanterelle - normally found fruiting from November to January, although I took this photo in August. Make of that what you will.

Some blushing wood mushrooms, Agaricus silvaticus, so called because of the red colouring when cut. Very tasty, these. They went in a steak/ale/mushroom pie, which probably deserves its own post.

As above, before I got them home.

A perfect little pinewood mushroom, Agaricus silvicola.

All these mushrooms were found in Devon, UK, mainly on or near Dartmoor.