There are many types of coral fungi in the woods at this time of year. They can be very hard to identify without a microscopic look at the spores but I think this one might be cockscomb or crested coral (Clavulina coralloides.) Crested corals have branches that end in sharp tips and these tips will often turn brown as the ones in the photo have done. I don’t see these as often as I do other types of coral fungi.
The branch ends on this coral fungus are blunt and yellowish so I think this might be a golden coral (Ramaria aurea.) These are common here and can get quite large. This one was 4 or 5 inches across. It’s always exciting to find such beautiful things coming up out of the dead leaves.
Turkey tail fungi (Trametes versicolor) start to show up when the leaves that hid them fall off the lower branches of shrubs. They come in many colors, the most common being shades of shades of brown, but sometimes you can find purple or blue ones like those pictured here. Turkey tails are bracket fungi that always grow on wood and they are always worth looking for.
Dyer’s Polypore (Phaeolus schweinitzii) is also called the velvet topped fungus because of its hairy appearance. These fungi are parasitic on the roots and heartwood of living white pines in the eastern U.S. and cause root rot. I usually find them on logs though, and have never seen one on a live tree. This fungus changes color as it ages. If found when young it can be used to dye wool a soft yellow or orange and older examples will dye wool brown.
This is what a young dyer’s polypore looks like. As you can see the color difference between young and old examples is dramatic. Some of these mushrooms can get quite large but this one was only about 3 inches across. Though they sometimes look as if they’re growing on the ground as this one does, they’re really growing on conifer roots or buried logs.
Golden pholiota (Pholiota limonella) mushrooms grew on a beech log and looked like scaly puffballs, so it took a while to identify them. They can grow on living or dead wood in the summer and fall and usually form clusters. Their orange-yellow caps are slimy and covered in reddish scales. The late afternoon sun really brought out the golden color of these examples.
Lemon drops (Bisporella citrina) look like tiny lemon candies that have been sprinkled over logs, but they are sac fungi with stalked fruit bodies. The term “sac fungi” comes from microscopic sexual structures which resemble wineskins. There are over 64,000 different sac fungi, including cup and “ear” fungi, jelly babies, and morel mushrooms.
Lemon drops start life as a tiny yellow disc and look as if they lie flat on the log, but a closer look shows that each disc hovers just above the surface on a short stalk. As they age each disc will become cup shaped. The “citrina” part of the scientific name comes from the Latin citrin, and means “lemon yellow.” Lemon drops live up to their name and great clusters of them can often be seen on stumps and logs from quite a distance. Single examples are extremely small and very hard to get a sharp photo of.
I’m not sure what this misshapen mushroom was. It looks more like a truffle than anything else but it was growing above ground and truffles grow underground.
NOTE: Two visitors have identified this fungus as an aborted entoloma (Entoloma abortivum). Thanks guys!
When the remains of the 5000 year old “Ice Man” were found in the Ötztal Alps in 1991, one of the things he carried were dried pieces of tinder polypore (Fomes fomentarius.) Treated strips of the fungus made exceptional fire starting material. Because it burned slowly it could also be used to carry fire from one camp to another and it even has medicinal properties, so it would have been a very valuable possession in 3,300 BCE.
I found these odd shaped black fungi on a white pine log. I don’t know if they started life black or if they turned black as they aged. They were very rubbery like a jelly fungus.
September has been a dry month so I haven’t seen many slime molds, but I do have a few shots of some that I found. I think this one might be Badhamia utricularis forming fruit bodies before going on to produce sporangia, which simply means that it’s going through the process of releasing its spores. Some slime molds consume fungi and this one seems to prefer crust fungi.
One of the most fascinating things about slime molds is how they can move. They are thought of as a giant single cell with multiple nuclei which can all move together as one at speeds of up to an inch per hour. They can also climb and often do so to release their spores. In this photo the sporangia (fruiting bodies) of Leocarpus fragills have climbed a twig so the wind might better disperse their spores. The twig was little more than the size of a toothpick, so that should give you an idea of how small the sporangia are. They are often so small that I can’t see any real detail by eye, so I have to let the camera see for me-quite literally “shooting in the dark.”
One of the frustrating things about slime molds is that there seems to be very little in print about them so they can be very hard to identify. However if you can get beyond that and just enjoy them for their beauty, then a whole new world that you never knew existed will open up for you. But wear your glasses; each of the tiny white “pearls” pictured was barely bigger than the period made by a pencil on a piece of paper.
Stuff your eyes with wonder … live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ~Ray Bradbury
Thanks for stopping in.
We have had a dry summer, so fungi and slime mold growth have been rare so far. There was some rain a couple days ago so it may be time to go see if I can find anything similar to the lovely specimens you have captured. Nice Post Allen!
Thank you Rick.
We had rain at least once each week all summer long but it dried up as soon a September got here. I hope you’re able to find some fungi and slime molds now that you’ve seen some rain. They say we’re going to get some tomorrow.
Great photos as usual. I’d love to see a coral fungus. Sadly, on my most recent walk in the woods, I discovered someone had removed all the rotting logs so there were no fungi at all.
What a strange thing for someone to do. They obviously don’t understand what a healthy forest is all about.
It is odd that coral fungi look so much like their underwater namesakes. I wonder if there is some shared evolutionary purpose that drove these fungi and invertabrate sea creatures to create these shapes, each in their different way.
That’s an excellent question. I hope a reader will be able to answer it.
I love turkey tail! I’ve ever only seen some once, apparently I am not looking the right time of year. The quote is excellent!! I’ve been spotting Ladies’ Thumb everywhere, by the way, even in my yard. I think I’m driving my walking partner crazy.
Thank you Jocelyn. The easiest time to see turkey tails and many other small hidden things is when the leaves fall. I’m not surprised that you’re seeing so much lady’s thumb. That’s usually the way it works-once you’ve seen one of something suddenly you start seeing them everywhere you go. Your walking partner should be happy to get a little lesson in natural history!
What beautiful photographs and such an interesting post. I too, liked the Bradbury quote
Thank you Clare. I like that quote too. It’s a great way to live, I think.
I haven’t been out lately myself, and so I especially enjoyed these photos and information!
Thanks Montucky. I hope your knees aren’t giving you trouble again.
Beautiful and so informative; I love the exquisite detail in your photos. I always learn so much in each of your posts.
Thank you Charlie. I’m glad that you and others get so much from these posts.
I don’t know how you are able to find so many small life forms the way that you do. I’d have to crawl around on my hands and knees with a magnifying glass.
And, I don’t know how you get such great photos of them. I tried today, but I couldn’t stay steady enough trying to hold the camera with one hand and a light with the other.
But, no matter how you do it, I’m glad that you do, for I thoroughly enjoy your posts!
Thanks Jerry! I usually can see them from the trail if I walk real slow with my eyes on the ground, and I look for color rather than form. A white or yellow (or any color) smudge like mark on a leaf, log or stump gets me looking a little closer. Then if I see a slime mold I set the LED light on the ground and use the Panasonic Lumix point and shoot on a Gorilla Pod to get the shot. The light is usually very low where they grow so you have to keep the camera steady by using a tripod, rock, or log. The best things about the point and shoot are its lightness and its macro capabilities. If I got a DSLR I’m not sure that I’d even bother with a macro lens.
Only you could make slimy stuff look beautiful and interesting! Love this!!
Thanks Martha. Whoever named slime molds didn’t know what they were talking about because they really aren’t slimy or moldy!
Great lemon drop and slime mold pictures. They are very difficult to take.
Thank you. They sure are!
So fascinating, informative, enjoyable … did I say “enjoyable?” … and Amazing!
Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Try googling John Bonner for more info on slime molds. An emeritus professor of biology at Princeton University, he wrote a book about slime molds back in the 1960s or early 70s.
Thank you. I looked him up and he’s quite a guy. I’m not sure that his books have anything to do with identifying slime molds but they sound interesting nonetheless.
Great photos…such fun textures and colors. I love the Ray Bradbury quote! Happy Autumn : )
Thank you Laurin, and the same to you!
I am in the woods all the time and have never seen the coral fungi, does it grow in our area or only in the north? It’s very beautiful!
I just looked it up and yes, you seem to have all the coral fungi there that we have here Michael. They usually appear a day or two after a good rain and grow on the forest floor or on logs. Most aren’t any bigger than a golf ball, so you have to watch closely for them. Also, many of them like to grow in hard packed earth and will grow right at the edge of trails.
Reblogged this on Dawn of Divine Rays.
Slime molds that climb twigs, amazing!
I agree!
Spelling correction to prior comment – name should be Entoloma abortivum. Sorry about that.
No problem. It happens to all of us. Thanks again.
Your mystery “truffle” is most likely the aborted(ive) honey mushroom caused by the Entoloma abortiva mycelium. See
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/entoloma_abortivum.html
A wonderful story about the interactions between the two fungi.
Thank you for the link. That is an interesting story and I think your and Michael Nerrie’s identification are right on the mark. Odd that I couldn’t find it in any of 3 field guides!
[…] – If you were interested in our spore printing post you might like to learn more about other types of fungi here. […]
Hi Allen,
Lots of great photos and fungi info. I too find the slime molds both fascinating and frustrating. Keep up the good work. By the way, the misshapen mushrooms in your blog (just after the lemon drops photos) might be Aborted Entoloma, (Entoloma abortivum).
Thank you Michael. I think you’re right about that mushroom. I just looked it u and it sounds right. Thanks for the help!
I think the slime molds are fascinating. It is hard for me to imagine them moving with a purpose. So many of your finds are things most people would never notice!
Thanks Laura. I agree. All of those tiny things “thinking” together about where they want to go is really amazing.
[…] Go here to read the rest: Fall Fungi (and Friends) […]
Your misshapen mystery mushroom looks like a piece of pop corn to me. 🙂
I thought so too Jim. It also looks like that spray foam insulation in a can.
Well you never know Allan. A friend of mine had a new house built a few years ago and discovered a mystery “fungus” growing in his garden a couple of years later. To cut a long story short, it turned out to be a can of polyurethane foam that the builder had discarded and had been covered over with top soil. The can had eventually corroded enough so that the foam leaked out, expanded up through the soil and erupted one night. There were photos going back and forth to all his friends asking for an id before my “joke” suggestion of foam was shown to be the answer. 🙂
Thanks for the story Jim. That’s hilarious!
Armchair school lesson, and so well presented.
Thank you Ben!