Shaggy Mane

Steve and I saw this strange mushroom behind our condo last week. I wrote to the local paper here and they posted my photo and what I wrote. Here's the link. http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070818/SUMMITUP/108180087

They sent me the following response from a reader in Breck. It really is a strange mushroom.

I would like tell you about the mushroom picture in today's paper. This is the very last remnants of the Coprinas comatus, better known as the Shaggy Mane. It is very common after rain in August and September it. It has a cylindrical cap, white with dark shaggy scales. Comatus means shaggy in Latin. It It is very good edible when fresh. It disperses its spores by deliquescing into black ink from the bottom up. The picture shows the black stringy remains of the cap. Rain probably washed away the "ink". It actually was used as ink back in the days of the quill pen. This mushroom often comes up in hard packed soil along dirt roads and has been known to push up through asphalt!