fungi
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Yes, It’s Actually This Orange
This sure jumps out at you, doesn’t it? Orange Peel Fungus (Aleuria aurantia). A couple of patches had been recorded in Green-Wood by others on iNaturalist and I just had to see it in person. I was not disappointed. With the library, my main source of books, shut down for months and now hard to…
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Beauty and Slime
This was too high up, on a dead part of a big red oak, to get a better photo, but damn, isn’t it amazing? The Asian Beauty (Radulomyces copelandii) fungus is a recent introduction from Asia, with the first East Coast records in Massachusetts only from 2011. It seems to be moving fast. The Japanese…
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Mushroom/Mammal Mashup Monday
Watched this one eat two small gilled mushrooms that it rooted out of the sward.Discarded the woodsy stems…
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Mushroom Monday
My boot, at bottom of image, is almost exactly one foot long. An enormous example of Berkeley’s Polypore (Bondarzewia berkeleyi). Another large polypore, Black-staining (Meripilus sumstinei). Details of the Black-staining.
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Mushroom Monday
Common Bird’s Nest Fungi (Crucibulum laeve), sometimes also known as White Egg Bird’s Nest fungi. The English muffin form (upper left above) is the early stage. Not sure how it loses its top, but then the “nest” is exposed with the “eggs” or fruiting bodies, as in the lower right. These were growing on what…
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Mushroom Monday
Lots of rain, lots of mushrooms. Here’s one. This orange puff ball is Calvatia rubroflava. Under a pignut hickory, along with a few remains of others. And a little further away.
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Witches’ Broom
A hackberry tree, Celtis occidentalis. Notice the clumpiness in the canopy? A slightly closer view of one fo the clumps. (They were all out of hand’s reach.) This is witches’ broom, a gall-like growth of branches sprouting in multiples. Hackberry is particularly susceptible. In this case, it seems to be caused by a combination of…
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Amber Jelly
Under two mature oaks, one red and one willow. Windfall branches from the canopies after a recent rain-snow storm. (Over-exposed coin just over an inch across for scale.) Both trees’ branches were sporting this jelly raisin-like stuff. It seems to be Amber Jelly Fungus (Exidia ricsa). I’ve never see this at eye-level or below, only…
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A Miscellany
Indian pipe in fruit. A spider wasp of some kind, found dead on this car. The pearly paint really shows up in detail; I bet its production is toxic as hell. The Pompilidae family of spider wasps has some 5000 species in it… There are a number of fungi that stain wood various colors. Denim…
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Backyard and Beyond 