So we've been having kind of a wet, ugly year again, but my wine caps really seem to love that (I missed them last fall entirely because the rain kept me mostly indoors and by the time I saw them they were past usable). They decided to start fruiting last week. When they first emerged, they looked pretty normal, but then there was rain and cold and humidity and they're in an area of dappled shade (not ideal, I know, but the plan was to use that
wood chip bed as a kind of nursery to inoculate the 5 dump trucks of wood chips I got in 2016; things happened and I never got the big piles inoculated).
After a day or so, the caps started to look funky, like they were covered in powdery mildew. This isn't the best image of that, but it's the best I could do; it was the next clear day after a rain so the white washed off. See first attachment.
Fast forward a few days, more rain, and now sun. I decided to harvest (even though they're a little bigger than recommended) and I'm wondering if they're safe to eat. When the powdery mildew (or whatever it was) was on the caps, they felt like there was a layer of thick mucous on the surface, a kind of slimy-to-gummy texture as it dried. This is what they looked like today (edited; see 2nd attachment image)
I didn't take the largest caps; underneath those there were tons of smaller babies (3" diameter and smaller).
Has anyone here had this problem before or have any input on it? After cutting the stems off, I ended up with almost two pounds of the small caps and it would really be a shame to waste them, but I super don't want to get sick, either.