Dead but full of life

22 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by sconzani in autumn, fungi, nature, trees

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

autumn fungi, bracket fungi, dead tree full of fungi, fungi on tree, gilled fungi, Lycogala sp., slime mould

181022 fungi on log (1)

This tree may be dead but it’s teeming with life.

I’m sure it’s chock full of a huge variety of bugs and beetles, slugs and centipedes, and many other mini-beasties, but what caught my eye was the number of different types of fungi it was supporting.

As well as several species of gilled mushrooms, there were also various intriguing brackets, some oozing golden droplets, and a wonderfully vibrant orange Lycogala species of slime mould. Fungi may often be difficult to identify but they never cease to amaze me.

181022 fungi on log (6) 181022 fungi on log (13)

Lawyer’s wig

19 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by sconzani in autumn, fungi, nature

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

autumn fungi, confusing fungi, Coprinopsis lagopus, Coprinus comatus, fungus, Hare's-foot inkcap, inkcaps, Lawyer's wig, Shaggy inkcap

I think you can see how this shaggy little fungus got one of its common names, Lawyer’s wig, as it so well resembles the wigs lawyers wear in court. This is Coprinus comatus, also, not surprisingly, known as the Shaggy inkcap. Coprinus means ‘living on dung’ but this fungus really just prefers very rich soil with lots of decaying plant matter. These are usually found in groups of up to 20 individuals, and I found this little group of five along the edge of a woodland path, a fairly typical habitat.

180919 Shaggy inkcap (1)

Edit: My fungi friend Graham very kindly pointed out that I had mis-identified my initial find but, luckily, I saw some real Shaggy inkcaps today, so I have changed the photos above to show those.

The confusion species, which my initial photos (below) showed, was actually the Hare’s-foot inkcap (Coprinopsis lagopus). Perhaps you can see why I was confused by all that shagginess!

Bute oysters

15 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by sconzani in autumn, fungi, nature

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

autumn fungi, Bute Park, Crepidotus species, oyster fungi, oysterling fungi, Pleurotus species

180915 Oyster fungi (1)

I called this post ‘Bute oysters’ (because I found them during a wander in Cardiff’s Bute Park last week) but maybe that should be beaut oysters because there’s no denying these Oyster fungi are sculptural beauties.

180915 Oyster fungi (2) 180915 Oyster fungi (3)

And I called them oysters but I’m not actually sure what they are – mostly likely some type of Oyster (Pleurotus sp.) or Oysterling (Crepidotus sp.). I gave up trying to identify fungi species a year or so back when I realised that you really need a microscope to have any chance with most of them and I decided I didn’t want to go down that route.

180915 Oyster fungi (4) 180915 Oyster fungi (5)