I am a big fan of Fungi. Every time I see them it likes seeing a whole different world with a magical net of mycelium glowing and delivering energy underground, talking and connecting with plants and others in their own little network. It is so cool yet so news to me. I know about mushroom long time ago, to eat of course. However, I had no idea about what growing underneath it and I didn't make any effort to find out. When I learn that mushroom is just like a fruit body of the fungi, it brings an awe to me, never think about it that way.
As I live near mountains with pine growing everywhere, I know it is the perfect place to go and see mushrooms. It was quite fun and made my walk interesting at first. But eventually, I feel a bit bored doing it by myself as my husband is busy recently so I stopped for a while.
Then I suddenly discovered that there are guided walks in one of the parks not far from where I lived and they discuss about mushrooms. It is a beautiful park called Ōtari-Wilton's Bush I've been there couples of time and always loving it. So I decided to sign up for a two-hour guided walk to explore about what type of mushrooms growing there, the conditions, how to do spore check and so on...
It was a fine Sunday afternoon. I remember we didn't have much rain that week so according to our tour guide, there weren't as many mushroom around as he expected. However, he did a quick check the day before and he could found some pretty ones to show us.
The first one he showed us is this beautiful little bee hive mushroom. I am not good at remembering their actual name as it is always long and hard to remember so I will name it in this little post of mine as I like. Just so if you are a mushroom expert you don't tell me off because I can't tell the real name.
Anyway, this little one caught my attention when I looked at it up close. So beautiful and with the colour it is truly a little bee hive. Although when I look through my photos now it also looks like some cupcakes. Our tour guide said the way this one spreads its spore is when raining and water drop on it, it will spread the spores. Would be awesome to see it. I might have to do a google check later to see how it works.
The next one we looked at is this tiny little red. Our tour guide said they actually put bark around 5 years ago for mushrooms to grow. At first they could see lots of them, like technically everywhere but now you have to come closer and look for it. To be honest, there are still many of them and I could easily find some.
About this little red one, I don't recall much of hearing about it as I was too busy looking for them and admiring their beauty. They are tiny so I had to knee down and came as closed as possible. They are truly amazing, aren't they? Once I was kneeling down, I actually found some bird-net mushroom next to it.
I actually saw this mushroom on the documentaries about Fungi. To be absolutely honest, if I haven't seen this one before, I could easily miss it and don't even know it is a fungi. I might even mistaken it for some kind of dry seeds. Looks very much like it to me.
Check it out, this is my first time seeing this mushroom. I actually found it with others. When I touch the grey bubble part, there are some spores coming out. It is amazing to be able to see it with my own eyes. I didn't have any simple name for this one, might be you can help me with it, suggesting something easy to call and remember?
These ones above I actually know about them. It grows a lot near the pine trees in the mountain near my place. I remember I could find lot of them around 2 weeks after heavy rain. They grow abundant in group and actually quite similar with the brown mushroom that you can buy in super market. I picked them up couples of times and did smell check as well. It does smell like mushroom I bought to eat.
Do you think this fungi looks like flowers? How good to be a pretty mushroom. Doing great cause to help our planets digest stuff and then turn it into soil and fertilizer for the whole ecosystem to enjoy. Ala that's a well-done job.
Here are some others mushrooms we found on the walk as well. I didn't pay attention much to them because I saw them before and it is easier to find them every where around my places. For me, they are still really cool to look at so I include them below.
That's it for today folks. I am so glad I did this walk. It is a next level to my own little shroom adventure. I enjoy it a lot. Have a lovely week, everyone.
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