Wednesday, November 19, 2008

On a sun-dried log

Not all mushrooms need damp and dark; these were on a pair of logs well above the high-water mark at Boundary Bay beach.

Log #1: growing out of the side of the log.


Common Split Gills?

They look like the Common Split Gill mushrooms in my guide (Audubon). But the write-up says their range is "Maine to Tennessee, west to North Dakota." Which is contradicted two sentences further on, with "The Common Split Gill is found throughout the world..." Confusing.

The biggest is about an inch across.


The underside, showing the split gills.

On log # 2: growing at the cut end.


Oddly-shaped mushrooms, pinched at the centre. A couple of similar ones in the guide are called Saddle-Shaped.


These are a bit more conventional.

Slime or mushroom?


Looking like blobs of Silly Putty oozing out of the pores.


And dribbling down the log face.

Many of the other pores were outlined in this white stuff:


Hebrew script?

My guide doesn't acknowledge the existence of anything quite this weird.
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1 comment:

  1. Fungi are such a challenge to identify, and just when you find something that looks like it's your thing, some aspect of its life history doesn't seem to match. Perhaps mycologists feel the same way about birds?

    I wrote about split gill fungi back in April. The North American guide I have indicates that it's found throughout the continent, from Florida to Labrador to Alaska to California, and sources I'd found online agreed, so it's a bit strange that your guide limits it to the east. In any case, it shouldn't be unusual for your area.

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