Tags: Fungi. Fungus. Flora and Fauna. Wildlife. Australian Flora. Plants. Bribie Island
With consistent rainfall at the beginning of autumn, the countryside has sprung to life with the emergence of a multitude of mushrooms in all shapes and sizes.
Agarics – Note gills under the caps
Agarics – The most common forms are the Agarics which have gills under mushroom shaped fleshy caps. They come in many shapes and colours. Shaggy Parasols have sprung up recently in large numbers on grassy patches on nature strips and in gardens. They are large white mushrooms with brown flecks beginning as a round ball and becoming the shape of a parasol as they mature. Several other agarics, many quite colourful have appeared during the autumn wet in woodlands and gardens.
Boletes – Note the red and blue bleeding on some of the under cap
Boletes – Boletes are also mostly mushroom shaped but under the cap is soft and spongy with pores instead of gills. Many of the species, when touched on the underside of the cap, will change colour sometimes to red and sometimes to blue.
Polypores are hard and found on wood.
Polypores – This is a large group of fungi which mainly grows on decaying wood. The undersides are porous and usually quite hard. Many are brightly coloured. They are sometimes called Bracket or Leather Fungi.
Bird’sNests, Earth Stars, and Puffballs
Puffballs – Puffballs are mostly round in shape with the inside filled with dry, powdery spores. Earth Stars are puffballs and sometimes appear in leaf mould in gardens or parklands.
Bird’s Nest Fungi are in the shape of cones with the nest and eggs in view above the ground. The eggs contain the spores for reproduction.
See featured image(top) for Stinkhorns.
Stinkhorns – Stinkhorns are colourful, slimy and smelly forms of fungi that grow in mulch and leaf matter. They come in the most bizarre shapes. Flies and other insects feed on the brown slime. Autumn after rain as the weather begins to cool is the best time to look for fungi.
All of the above photographs were taken on Bribie Island.
Other Articles
https://thebribieislander.com.au/paperbark/
https://thebribieislander.com.au/garden-gets-a-visit/