Trametes versicolor collection

For today's post, I give you good ol' turkey tails.

I just love these things. Like velveteen agates. They're really common, found all over the world.

I have a deep affection for these, but I didn't realize I've been taking pictures of them so often. I was looking for something else in some older images, and kept finding more pics of these, so I rounded up some of my favorites. These were all taken over the past year. Some are technically crappy, but look at the colors.

I'd like to know what causes the stripes and the different colors. The green one has algae growing on it, so it's excused. 

Personal favorite is the golden one, near the bottom.

 

 

Mushroom foray assortment, Sept. 17

Yellow fairy cups, Bisporella citrina.
These are only about 1/8” across, from a little distance they just look like a vague yellow something on a log.

Mycena haematopus

Plum-colored lovelies.
These are all over the place, at this stage they’re a beautiful soft frosted purple, with a “bloom” on them like grapes. Some great common names: blood-foot Mycena, bleeding fairy helmet, the burgundydrop bonnet, or the bleeding Mycena. All the common names (and the Latin specific epithet) refer to the purple-red juice they exude from the stem when crushed. They lose the purple color as they age, fading to tan.

            
(L, above) Fairy fingers, Clavaria vermicularis, more evidence of fairies. These are about 3/16th of an inch thick (kind of big for the fairies I know).

(R, above) Gem-studded puffball, Lycoperdon perlatum. The surface texture is very delicate and rubs off at the slightest touch.

 
Very young chicken-of-the-woods, Laetiporus sulphureus. This wonderful cloud-like formation will expand into overlapping fans of zoned orange above, bright smooth clear yellow below.
It’s fall, it’s mushroom season in a big way, I can barely keep up with all the mushrooms out there now.

Lycoperdon pulcherrimum

This is my new best friend. It is a type of puffball.

My excellent hiking-pal found the first one, and then I found a bunch of other ones on another hike. They are tiny (at most an inch--that bit of rusty-brown in the background is an acorn), but the white really stands out (that is, if you’re spending most of your hike looking at the ground 3 feet in front of you).

I think they are so cute that they warrant their own private post. I’ll add more pics to this post if I find more.

9/26: Found more! Still just as cute!