First of all, I would like to say that this is my contribution to #FungiFriday by 
The summer was hot & dry, and even now, at the beginning of autumn, the situation isn't very different. The days are warm. There is a bit of humidity in the form of the dew early in the morning, but the last rain fell quite a few weeks ago, and even that one wasn't long or strong enough to be significant.
The nature around me doesn't look ready for a fungi season ...
... so you can imagine my surprise when I saw these lovely Agaricus fruiting bodies on the lawn by the side of an unpaved road that leads through Marlera, the coastal area a couple of kilometers from the village of Liznjan, and five or six kilometers from where I live. I was there for insects & spiders - mushrooms were the last thing on my mind.
At first, I thought about some golf-related event that left a bunch of golf balls behind. This area was meant to be turned into a golf course a decade or so ago but then the project came to a dead end. There was too much illegal stuff involved. A plan for covert urbanization of the area, and stuff like that. I thought, who knows, maybe the golf people are up to something again. Then, for a few seconds only, I was pretty sure I was looking at some kind of puffball mushrooms.
One look at this photograph I took when I came closer, makes it clear that these are Agaricus mushrooms of some kind. You can also see that the mushrooms are cut. The weird thing is - I didn't cut them. I just overturned them to see the color of the gills. Someone else cut them and set them up on the lawn. The next weird thing ...
... is their shape and size. They are all more or less the same. When you come across a bunch of wild Agaricus in this area, they are always a mix of smaller and bigger fruiting bodies, and furthermore, they are always in various stages of development. Some are closed, egg-like, or golf ball-like, just like the ones shown in these photographs, while others look like meaty umbrellas.
A scene like this just doesn't look right. But is also absolutely believable at the same time. I don't have DNA evidence or anything like that, but all the circumstantial evidence strongly points toward the theory that someone bought a bunch of cultivated mushrooms, let's say in the supermarket, and then brought them here to set up the mushroom-themed prank of the year, and who knows, maybe even of the century.
When I realized what this congregation of mushrooms was probably about, I started laughing from the deepest depths of my heart and an ordinary day turned into an especially happy one. Later at home, I started being a bit jealous that I wasn't the one who thought and put in practice a prank like this. I don't know who brought these champignon mushrooms to Marlera but I'm very impressed by his or her dedication to the art of making things funnier than usual. If I somehow discover who the author is, I'll make another post that sheds more light on things seen in this one.
These mushrooms are all in good shape, fresh, and perfectly edible, but I didn't pick them. It would be a shame to deny this prank to other people who like to walk around Marlera.
Before leaving, I put the mushrooms I displaced to get some of these photographs, back in their original position. The scene was perfect again, ready to fool another wanderer.
However, I didn't drive back home immediately. I was there primarily for the insects & spiders, so I photographed quite a few of them for my "MACRO OCTOBER IN MARLERA" series. But that's another story, this one ends here.
