C’est une mystère

I planted a few more apricots after our Seattle trip and today I was looking to see if there was any sign of life.

There was–but not of an apricot. It looked like half the inside of a kernel with its brown skin sloughed off, but softer edged, less solid somehow, poking partway out of the soil as if the seed had been turned upright.

I tried a gentle tug. It didn’t budge. It was, however, vaguely slug-like. Ew.

By 5:00 I was sending my mom a picture.

Two hours later I took this one, and in those two hours it had gotten taller and the bottom of the cap was splitting open a bit more: one umbrella, coming up.

Did it come from the coconut coir the jiffy-type pots were made out of? Seems to have; the soil was new and therefore would have been sterile. Or is it growing off the edge of the actual apricot kernel that’s under there? I don’t think so; it’s too far off to the side.

So far I’ve been letting the little science experiment do its thing and show me what it wants to look like at every stage. My problem is, I have no idea what type of mushroom it is, whether it’s safe to even touch it (I washed my hands thoroughly after losing at tug o’ war) and I most certainly don’t want it sending spores around the inside of my house.

Nor do I want squirrels digging up my kernels and taste-testing them, as apparently happened to two that I found out of the dirt and apparently bitten and spat out the last time.

I want to see what it wants to do, I just don’t want it to have done it. No, that doesn’t make much sense but yes it does.

There are apps for identifying plants but when I tried to sign up for one I found out my phone’s too old to qualify. Anyone have any remote idea whether I should be intrigued or alarmed? Thanks.

On second thought, given that rate of growth, I think I’ll put it outside for the night after all. Oh, look, the stalk is half again taller than when I took this picture and started typing. The cap is bigger, too.

Out!