A tree, a branch or a twig...

Phlebia radiata

Hard to believe that these beautiful forms are fungi. The ones shown here are gelatinous. I have touched them and some of them tremble. Because of the warm  winter, many types of fungi were still showing their fruiting bodies up to beginning of January 2016. As soon as the cold weather hit, they withered. The fruiting body is just the outside form of a fungus, grown for reproductive ends. The permanent form is hidden under bark, leaves, dirt, sand, rotten wood or mulch, waiting for the right season to show its beauty again. This secret form is called mycelium. 

Gelatinous fungi could be transparent, yellow, pink, purple, white, orange, brown, and black. They are found on fallen trees, like Phlebia radiata; on a branch, like Auricularia auricula,  on a twig, like Tremella mesenterica. I found Exidia glandulosa on a wooden fence, and Ascocorynes sarcoides and Hericium on  giant  dead trees.

Auricularia auricula  - tree ear

Tremella mesenterica

Hericium    (variety?)

Exidia glandulosa

Ascocorynes sarcoides

Many fallen trees

Many fallen trees become a treasure box to find all sort of living things on their bark and 'flesh'. As I told you before, this old giant tree fell down not too long ago. It changed a lot of things around it, even the path. I went to inspect the bark and to my delight, there were already lots of fungi growing on it. I couldn't see the details from the tree's base. I measured its circumference and it was around 180 inches = 4.50 meters.  The third photo in the left shows the spot where Bondarzewia berkeleyi  was growing. It was crushed. Perhaps the mycelium is dormant right there, waiting for the next summer to come back and allow the walkers to enjoy the
beauty of nature...
I just read something marvelous! This fungus grows
around the base of oak or beech trees.So this old
fellow was an oak tree. Actually, it is not marvelous
that the fungus grows there because that means
"the beginning of the tree's end"! The fungus rots
the roots and eventually the tree falls as it happened
recently.

Bondarzewia berkeleyi

Fungi 'devour' anything

'sulfur yellow slime mold'?

The two lower photos are slime mold. I have not been able to find out what kind is the one above, which I found growing on wild animal feces. Its sulfur yellow color was so outstanding on the forest floor among all the brown leaves that I spotted it easily. When I bent to examine it with the magnifying glass I could not help to stay for too long there because the smell was extraordinary strong. I took a leaf that was closed enough to it and I only saw 'yellow dust'.

Phycomyces blakesleanus

I found the filamentous fungus  when I was looking for other pine related mushrooms. My eye caught sight of something tall among the leaves and I could not believed what I saw. How graceful and beautiful that was. I noticed the black tiny drops of  ink at the end of each filament and when I touched it stained my fingers. I checked where were they growing from and it was dog poop. When I had the photo in my computer, I zoomed in and I discovered that when the filaments were shorter, the drops were yellow. The fungus can grow up to 20 cm tall, about 8 inches but, it says in the books that "Its useful life is usually shorter owing to limitations of mechanical stability". The droplet is sticky and it could stick to dust (!) carried away by wind or insects or by animals if it is in the grass.

Phycomyces blakesleanus

Half fungus anyway

Cladonia cristarella & Phellinus gilvus

What happens when you mix an algae and a fungus?
You get a lichen! The one with the red tips is called British soldier lichen -Cladonia cristarella. In the photo, it is growing surrounded by the polypore Phellinus gilvus, on a fence. The weather was so wet these days, end of 2015, that fungi, slime and lichens were having a blast!  The algae produces the food and it is protected by the filaments of the fungus. It is a symbiotic relationship. Lichens are not parasites. They use surfaces to anchor.

Physcia stellaris

Parmotrema perforatum

Cladonia fimbriata - green trumpet

Pseudevernia consoncians- antler lichen middle left

On the last two photos, there are several kinds of lichens and even a liverwort (tiny green plants)









Left- Pseudevernia consocians- antler lichen

Fungus of the day

Phellinus rimosus- Polyporaeae

Also known as Fomes rimosus

This fungus grows on living or dead black locust. For what I see, the Polypore was growing first on the tree when it was alive. As the tree fell down. the Polypore 'accommodated' itself  and a new fungus -lower left- is growing in the right position!  the size of this exemplar is 42cm, about 17 inches. The fungus becomes cracked as it ages. The tubes (inner structure that releases pores) grow 2-5mm per season, so imagine how old this one could be! This and the one below were found in Rancocas Nature Center few minutes away from Smithville Park, NJ.

Different views of the same polypore in another spot.

Beginning of the year

 

Giant tree at the entrance of Ravine trail one week before it fell down

The day before Christmas, I was traveling to Washington D.C., and before I left I couldn't resist to visit the woods and take more photos. I took this one. On January 2nd I went again and I couldn't see what had happened to the tree, because I was looking down to say hello to my old fungi fellows along the fence. Suddenly I was at the entrance of the trail and oh, the giant tree, my old dear friend, which I visited so many times was laying down. In its fall it broke other neighboring trees and left a huge hole in the ground. My heart talked to it. I stayed around it for a while. I saw a big piece of a broken plate that was unearthed when the tree fell down.  I looked at it and put it down. My eyes caught sight of something white among the roots and when I investigated, it was this little porcelain dog ( A little bit more than one inch and a half). It was cover and filled with dirt. I also saw two 'suspicious' rounded things and I investigated them.They were two giant buttons.

This is Hongos, which mean Fungus in Spanish. (H is mute)

Buenas noches!

High fungi fever

Hen of the woods- Grifola Frondosa

In the same Ravine Trail I found Grifola Frondosa. It was growing at the base of a huge oak tree.

There was also a fungus that grew fed by the exudation of some woolly insects. The fungus is named Scorias Spongiosa. It is a mold that grows essentially on their poop! I visited these spot several times, and I disturbed the insects and they would raised their behinds moving the white threads that hung from their rears. The insects are the white spot covering the low branch completely, and the fungus is on the ground, that brownish spongy shape that follows the branch length. The black parts on the ground are the dead parts of the fungus.

Scorias spongiosa- beech tree

As I fell more and more enamored of fungi, instead of walking just to exercise, as I did before, I slowed down my steps to look very carefully everywhere, and  I took notes and photos. My camera was not made for details so the photos were bad.  Now I have a better camera, three books about fungi, and  a microscope that I can plug to the computer. I have collected several samples of fungi. I have made fungi prints to help in the identification of them, and the clear fruit containers are my boxes to store them until I can put my act together. I have taken now hundreds of photos with better luck, and only today I finished deleting and converting them to star using them. The problem is that I don't know how to do it because the camera is very complicated! My high fungi fever will help me to find the way to do it so I can share the beauties that I have found.
It is time to go now.