Recently moved down to Brevard county Florida, wife has been bugging me for years so we decided to go for it. What kills me the most is not having any spots right now. After learning the hardwood forests of the Northeast this is a completely different ballgame. I've heard chants and trumpets grow down here. As well as chickens, blewitts and hedghogs. Just a matter of learning their preferred habitat here. The thing that throws me off is when the different varieties fruit. As soon as I mention the word mushroom here people automatically assume I'm looking for cubensis which is kind of frustrating. Hopefully I can find something decent soon.
Don't think you'll find any Morels down there. I have many friends that live there, ( mostly in the Keys ) and they have never seen a Morel. There are some nice Red Chanterelles that grow there. I'll see if I can find out what kind of trees they're around. These Red chants are not Cantharellus cinnabarinus.
I am in Tallahassee, so things may be very different in Brevard, but Chanterelles here tend to be most numerous in the depths of summer June-August(?). Most I've seen are in hardwood (often oak) groves with a fairly clear understory - the city parks and greenways with canopy cover that are not in chem-green lawn are good spots. Oysters tend to appear in fall and spring, as well as warm spells during winter, on a range of dead hardwoods; I've even had them come up on camphor logs. Lion's Mane often appears throughout the winter, generally on oaks. It doesn't like our increasingly infrequent frosts, but you won't have to worry about that. Chicken of the Woods are mostly late summer - August-Sept? I have found I have to go to middle Georgia for morels in spring - right around now. The furthest south credible report I have heard is Columbus, Georgia, although I have not found any that far south.
