Showing posts with label Schizophyllum commune. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schizophyllum commune. Show all posts

Friday, April 22, 2022

Fuzzy log fungi

 A fallen tree in the open forest is covered, top to roots, in crowded split-gill mushrooms, all well coated with blue-green algae.

Schizophyllum commune, with moss, salal, and a shoot of trailing blackberry.

The bulk of the mushroom, the mycelium, is inside the wood. It may have been there before the tree fell.

Green algae grows best in the deep shade at the bottom of the log.

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Un árbol caído en bosque abierto, se encuentra cubierto casi por completo de los hongos Schizophyllum commune, y éstos, por su parte, llevan una capa de algas azul-verde.

En la primera foto, en la parte superior (ahora, caído como está) se ven los hongos, unos musguitos, y una rama del arbusto "salal', Gualtheria shallon, y otra, apenas abriendo sus primeras hojas, de la mora silvestre indígena.

La mayor parte del hongo, el micelio, está fuera de la vista, en el interior de la madera. Puede ser que haya invadido el árbol antes de que éste cayera.

El alga azul-verde crece mejor en la sombra.


Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Pink lace petticoats

A very old-fashioned mushroom, with frilly white skirts rucked up to show off the pink lace beneath; this one always looks out of place, growing as it does, on wet, stained, old wood.

Common Split Gill mushroom, Schizophyllum commune

When the weather is dry, it folds those lace petticoats underneath to conserve moisture. In wet weather, (which we've been having plenty of) it fans out again.

The same mushroom, with another, smaller one.

Schizophyllum commune is easily recognized. Its tiny fruiting bodies lack stems, and they attach themselves like tiny bracket fungi on the dead wood of deciduous trees. Unlike a bracket fungus, however, Schizophyllum commune has what appear to be gills on its underside, rather than pores or a simple, flat surface. On close inspection the "gills" turn out to be merely folds in the undersurface--and they are very distinctively "split" or "doubled" (enlarge the illustrations). (Mushroom Expert.com)

This mushroom grows all around the world, year-round, so there are many photos on the internet. However, almost all of them show the underside, the split "gills". Even my trusty Guide shows only photos taken from underneath. A pity; those lacy skirts are too glorious to be passed by like that!


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