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Tropical
Far North Queensland has perfect conditions for growing fungus - forests,
warmth and plenty of water, so it's not surprising to find some real beauties,
like this delicate example, which was totally destroyed by a rainstorm
half an hour after I photographed it. |
This
stinkhorn smells as bad as the name implies, but the stench is essential
for attracting the flies it uses to spread its spores.
This
specimen looks much like ones I've seen in the United States, so I'm not
sure if it's native - but then fungi have been around for hundreds of millions
of years, which means they've had a good chance to spread around the planet.
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As
well as ground growing varieties there are fungi which grow on living and
dead trees, like this one which I photographed on a night walk through
the rainforest surrounding Cairns. |
| Costa
Rica and New Zealand |
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Costa
Rica has plenty of rainforest stretching all the way from sea level to
Central America's highest peaks, which results in a wide variety of habitats
and a surprising number of bird, animal and fungi species for such a small
country.
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The
main limitation for a mushroom fancier in Costa Rica is the amount of effort
you're willing to devote to hunting down the fungi.
Since
I was here on a general nature and travel photography trip, I spent much
more time on birds, insects, reptiles and scenery than on mushrooms - but
I still stumbled across a number of interesting specimens. |
Although
I lived in New Zealand for over 30 years, my interest in fungi didn't really
take off until after I'd left.
Still,
with such spectacular mushrooms as these fly agarics growing right on the
lawn of my house, it would be strange not to end up with at least a few
photos
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A
rainy day at Karlstejn castle outside Prague became the perfect excuse
to spend time wandering around the woods, looking for interestingly shaped
mushrooms and toadstools like this earthstar, a member of the puffball
family. |
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Along
with a few specimens I photographed in other places around the Czech Republic,
there are fungi here ranging from the tiny to the huge, from dull to colourful
and from the ordinary to the bizarre. |
I
could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw this large, brightly colored
fungus, and I was even more surprised when I identified it as a "chicken
of the woods", which I'd photographed previously in a much flatter form.
Despite
its strange appearance, this is a highly prized edible fungus which, as
its name suggests, is supposed to have the same texture and flavor as chicken.
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These
boletes are from the same location as the "chicken of the woods", Volo
Bog nature reserve in northern Illinois.
Swamps
are just the sort of warm and damp environment where fungi thrive, such
as these Phallic Fungi of the Great Swamp
Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey. |
These
orange balls are the reproductive phase of a slime mold, which despite
the word "mold" in its name is really only an honorary fungus.
In fact, it's not a fungus at all, nor is it an animal or a vegetable!
Instead, slime molds constitute a "kingdom" of life all of their own.
Some of them form giant single cell organisms with thousands of cell nuclei,
others exist as single cell organisms which come together under certain
conditions and form a single creature. Most of them move through
or over rotting wood at about a millimeter an hour, consuming bacteria,
and eventually move to the surface and produce fruiting bodies rather like
fungi, complete with spores. They're just one of the species
you might see during a fungi hunting
foray at Devil's Lake in Wisconsin.
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