Would this be a lactarius by any chance??

[blip]

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Edited April 5, 2010 by lsdreamz

[Shroomeup]

Try this out mate. It'll show you all pine plantations in Vic.

http://nremap-sc.nre.vic.gov.au/MapShare.v2/imf.jsp?site=forestexplorer

[Mr Stay Puft]

Sweet man, just went up with a hiking map, drove to some pines and collected about 2kg of Lactarius between four people! Not used to the pine terrain, i quite liked it, usualy mushy hunting in native grassy forests!

Cooked em up for the family last night in a creamy pasta sauce! They were quite nice, gave the cream a saffron color so i was quite impressed!

Did not find any slippery jacks worth collecting, there were a few slightly rotten ones right near the car but decided against collecting them!

[PD.]

Google earth makes it easy to find pine plantations. The colour and shape of them is unmistakable. Be careful in some pine forests, the tracks can be very deceptive and its easy to get lost even in a car, on foot in plantations that havent been "tracked" (thinning out, makes nice walkable tracks with piles of branches, waste etc every 20mtrs or so that fruit ridiculous amounts of fungi) it is very very easy to get disoriented and lose your way. If you do get a bit lost in a plantation just try and move in a straight line and keep going till you come to a vehicle track, is very easy to make it back to your car that way rather than walkin around in circles through dense pines. Also in some areas the pines are planted on areas that were mined and hence are dotted with shafts. These things are scary when you do stumble upon them and realise how easily you, your friends or that lil staffy runnin flat out through the scrub could fall into them.