Showing posts with label fungus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fungus. Show all posts

Fungus photos

It's been a while since I've photographed any fungus, one of my favorite outdoor subjects. The other day though I noticed that some of the log sections on the driveway have moved from firewood candidate status into future compost and soil contributors.


Some beautiful shelf fungus, most probably Trametes versicolor, was covering at least one of the logs. The drooping bamboo overhead must have made conditions just right!


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Unusual texture: fun!

I noticed something interesting in the garden the other day: a fungus that was creating an interesting texture on the mulch surrounding one of my bamboos.


Thousands of tiny dots making things much more fun!


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What follows the rain?

Eleven inches (28cm) of rain this month in St. Louis (officially), with at least 9" (23cm) of it coming in the last four days. What follows heavy rains in late December?


Well, two things. The first is fungus, or at least fungal blooms. My wife noticed these crazy orange/reddish things from the window.


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Mushroom

Earlier in my gardening career I had much more time for discovery, and finding fresh mushrooms was one of my delights. I'd grab my point-and-shoot Canon set to macro mode, lay down on the grass or mulch or whatever, and snap away.


These days I'm still excited by mushrooms, especially when a big one pops up after a few days of rain. (If you don't think you have enough mushrooms in your garden, get tree chippings. The free mulch I use contains plenty of fungal spores it seems.) I noticed this one the other day, then saw it ripped out the next morning -- probably by a raccoon. So I grabbed it, flipped it over, and started snapping photos.

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Mycelium

While removing my bamboo pots from the mulch piles the other day, I discovered not only a toad, but mycelium:


The fibrous, root-like portion of a fungus, mycelium is essential in breaking down organic matter and moving nutrients around.

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an old friend

I've got a woodpile in the back corner of my yard, and it's been there for several years. It's made of logs that were meant to be turned into firewood, but the wood turned out to be too tough to split for my liking, so it just sat. That was five years ago I believe, and this wood is only good for one thing now: fungus!


Each year when the weather is cool and things stay damp for a while, this orange fungus blooms. I love taking photos of mushrooms and other fungi, so I can't resist photographing this one whenever it appears. Appear it will too, as it's as reliable as an old friend.

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A little more fungus

A day or so after it rains, this orange rubbery fungus emerges from a log back in my woodpile. It's happened every time it's rained this summer.


It's interesting to me because it keeps appearing over and over. I think I remember seeing this last year too, but I can't be certain. How long can a fungus like this stay alive in a log? Years?


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A fungus fungus?

When I was a child I watched every low-budget sci-fi movie that was broadcast. I seem to remember Saturday afternoons being the regular timeslot for these movies, but I could be wrong about that. Rockets, invading alien creatures, strange discoveries in the sea or some deep cave, giant monsters attacking Tokyo and each other -- I loved them all. I'm sure I've forgotten dozens of horrible plots, but there are a few that have stuck with me. One in particular comes back to me every so often while working in the garden. It involved something about a shipwreck, an island full of giant mushroom people, and how eating the only source of food on the island -- mushrooms -- would turn you into one of these mushroom zombies.


I think that movie may have affected me more than I know, and may explain part of my fascination with mushrooms and other fungus. I sure love taking photos of mushrooms, and the days after a good soaking rain are the best times to find new ones. Yesterday morning I found something a little more surprising: what appears to be a fungus growing on some old mushrooms.


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Various Unrelated Observations

Often times when I'm taking photos in the garden I see something that doesn't lend itself to an entire post. Maybe it's something I do that doesn't require more than a photo or two, and a couple of sentences.


I've collected several of these recently, so today I'm going to just group them all together. Hope you find some of them to be interesting.


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Bird's Nest Fungi

I was poking around in the mulch under some of my bamboo plants the other day looking for new shoots, and I saw what to me is one of the coolest mini discoveries that you can find in mulch: Bird's Nest Fungus


When I first saw this a couple of years ago, it completely captivated me. How could something so complex form?

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