Sunday, November 23, 2014

Our Neighborhood Fungi

 Easily overlooked among the fallen brown leaves, our neighborhood fungi have begun to respond to the recent rains and are putting on quite a show.  The first three photos (of two different caps) were taken on my front lawn.  I've been walking by these for several weeks.  They grow very slowly and are pretty sturdy, so I expect them to be around for quite a while, perhaps until the first snow. 

 The remaining photos are from the edge of my driveway and my neighbor's yard.  These are the ones I walk or drive by every day without paying much attention.  It was a break in my firewood-splitting routine that gave me the urge to get my camera and take a slower walk.
 The next two shots are of a small area of moss growing out of a tree stump by the driveway.  On this day, I focused on some tiny fungi, but the mossy area is at least a square yard in size and also hosts several species of mosses and lichens.  A beautiful stump, but it is rotting and I think this might be its last season as a photo site before it becomes soil.

 The remaining photos were taken in a neighbor's side yard, an area that he never mows or disturbs in other ways, so every year it produces some of the most attractive fungi around.





 On the way back to the house, the twinkling of dew drops on grass caught my eye, so this last photo completes a "baker's dozen."

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