Sunday, August 18, 2013

June mushrooms of glorious shapes

Getting to the good stuff now!

I was hunkered down in some cedars taking pictures of these and a man on the trail asked me what I was doing.

puffballs tree base closer

puffballs closeup

I stared at him, wild-eyed, and snarled, “Don’t look at me! I’m hideous!!!"

puffballs closeup side

But these Lycoperdon perlatum are not hideous. They are wonderful.
For the record, these "gem-studded puffballs" grow from the ground, in case you're confusing them with the similar Lycoperdon pyriforme, which always grow from wood.

Below, the biggest wood ear I've ever found!

wood ear huge

wood ear tree






And here’s a tree with the most wood ears I've ever seen. This is only half of them—there was this much more further up the tree, too.
And here are some of the most beautiful wood ears I've ever seen.

wood ears on tree

wood ear huge

Now you know why I prefer overcast days for photos.

Below, some of that crazy ozonium of Coprinellus domesticus (C. radians is similar, but apparently does not come with ozonium). The orange fuzz is the mycelium erupting out onto the surface, instead of staying below things like it usually does (underground, under bark, etc.). I can’t find much info about it at all. What the heck does “form genus of imperfect fungi” mean? One site refers to it as “air mycelium.” The domain name www.ozonium.com is available. There is a player on Lolking named Ozonium. That is all I could find online.

The Latin name of this mushroom sticks in my mind because on mushroomexpert.com the ozonium is described as “orange shag carpeting”, which is in houses, which is domestic.

ozonium and mushrooms
Coprinus domesticus-001
















Here’s a pic on my Flickr account of the first time I encountered it. The first comment under it is funny.

beetle galleries
Beetle galleries




















Next is a gorgeous Laetiporus cincinnatus I found, visible from the trail (doesn’t anybody hike on these trails?).

Laetiporus view from trail

There it is, and suddenly there’s my foot and you can see how big it is.

chicken Laetiporus from above with foot

Laetiporus close

Absolutely prime and pristine.

Laetiporus

The conversation went like this: “Oh! How beautiful! Thank you so much! What’s the occasion?” And the forest replied, “Oh, no occasion at all, we just thought you’d like this.”


2 comments:

  1. Thank you, my dear! As I have mentioned previously, I love your photos and your blog. You walk lightly along the trails and lightly through life. And the next time someone asks me what I'm doing, I will want to turn and reply as you did but, probably, I will crack up before I can deliver the line.

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  2. I certainly cracked up when I wrote that!

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