Around the ground

Sometimes I get lazy and just post macro shots of fungi.

Fungus on a log

Sometimes I just get fascinated by fungus on a log.

Mush-a-room

I have a fondness for photographing fungus. Fungi are maddeningly common, but so freaking weird! Each specimen is unique, and otherworldly, and their mushroom-fruits just sit there, hangin’ out, begging to have their pictures taken. I can’t help but oblige!

Recently, I have managed to spare you from much of my fungus obsession, but today… today you look at a photo of a mushroom.

Tiny shroomies

Well, since I was on a bit of a non-fungus rampage earlier this week, here are some little fungi to make up for it. Hooray mycology!

Blazes

Parts of the New-Providence-area Passaic River Park trails are actually marked pretty well, as evidenced by these “turn right” blazes above. Other areas are next to impossible to navigate properly. (Ex.: if you try to hike this trail going the *other* direction, you will see no blazes.)

The section of the trail nearest where I live is notorious for this. I spent much of Thanksgiving morning hauling October-blizzard-felled logs out of the path, hedge-clipping branches and re-defining the path when I COULDN’T move offending logs, and using dead branches to indicate where the heck the periphery of the path even WAS.

I didn’t return to the park for a while after that, but I am pleased to report that the trail has gotten a fair amount of traffic since then— the leaves in the path are all very nicely tramped down. This makes me happy.

Like a lichen

Bright orange lichens on a fallen branch! I don’t think I’ve ever seen lichens this color before, have you?

Stop that awful [b]racket!

Just when you thought you’d had enough bracket fungi, I give you more! Mwahahaha.

Actually, I’m just calling any stemless fungus that grows from a tree “bracket fungus” now. I don’t know how accurate that is.

Regardless, {enjoy my brackets.}

I’m lichen this

Oh I love a good fungus pun. Actually, it’s a terrible fungus pun, because these aren’t lichens at all— as far as I can tell, they’re bracket fungi growing on a dead log.

Bracket fungi can apparently be identified by their shelf-like, sometimes-ruffled fans, which are called “conks!” I never knew that’s what a conk was. “Conk” is actually a syllable in my surname, so… I dunno, maybe that explains my inexplicable fascination with fungi. IT’S GENETIC. I’m descended from a fungus.

Lycoperdon, puffed for the very first time

I’m guessing this is some variant of the Lycoperdon group of fungi [Wikipedia], but I usually find these little balls on lawns, not on trees. So maybe not.

Usually, I just call ‘em “puffballs” and move on with my life.

Do you know what these little spiky puffball mushrooms are called?

P.S. The title is totally from this website.

Toadshrooms

Initially, I got all excited that maybe I had found some toadstools, but Wikipedia says that the only real difference between mushrooms and toadstools is that toadstools will kill you and mushrooms won’t.

Being unable to differentiate such things, I am going to call them “toadstools” because I can.