I noticed a fairy ring just outside the Arboretum entrance this morning and stopped to photograph it

Tanya stopped to see if I was okay; apparently I was prostrate on the ground and not moving. anyway I wasn't passed out or dead, I was just taking the bottom picture. I came back out at about 8:00 and someone had picked all the mushrooms. I hope they aren't eating them, or rather I hope they have identified them correctly if they're eating them. Gone in 90 minutes.

Fairy rings are cool. They form as fungal mycelium seeking new nutrients grows outward from some central point, I'm sure a dead street tree in this case, .Since the growth is more or less equal in all directions, the ultimate shape is circular. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of the fungus and they form at the periphery of the mycelial ring. Every year the circle is larger; I've heard of rings more than 20 feet in diameter. There was a "fairy arc" of false morels in China Valley in 2001 but I didn't see it this year.