Honey Honey

On my hike today there were several little clusters of golden/tan, gilled, and stalked mushrooms around the base of several trees. I initially thought they were Honey Mushrooms but having never encountered them I pulled out my trusty guidebook and found that I wasn't too far off. They were Ringless Honey Mushroom (Armillaria tabescens). I bagged two whole large clumps, leaving at least three smaller clumps to grow. I keyed out the characteristics from a couple other sources before I was confident in my ID. Now that I've tasted them, I'll be going back for the rest. The true Honey Mushroom, Armillaria mellea, is reported to be a "choice" edible while this one is only listed as "good". Ringless Honeys apparently grow just before the real Honeys start popping up so I guess I'm looking forward to finding those soon.
All the info I've found about these say to cook for at least 15 minutes to avoid gastrointestinal issues. I sauteed them in olive oil and a little garlic for about that long and they were delicious! I'm going on 6 hours since then and I'm feeling fine.

Identifying these can be slightly tricky if you don't know what to look for. They can resemble Jack O Lanterns to the untrained eye but if you've ever seen and ID'd them you'd never mistake these for Jacks, which are bright orange while these are tawny brown. The caps have darker brown scales or hairs more toward the center, the stalks are long, thin, darkening towards the bottom, and attached tightly together at the base. The gills are close and run down the stem slightly (decurrent).

Spore prints

The spore print is creamy white.

RELEASE THE SPORES!

The sun was at the perfect angle at the time to catch these spores taking to the wind. This mature specimen was really pumping out the spores, not sure if messing with it stimulated the spore release but it seemed to increase when I touched it.