In my climate, fungi only grow for a couple of weeks a year, when it rains nonstop for about a fortnight, usually after we get a visit from a tropical cyclone. Cyclone Eloise hit Mozambique about 10 days ago and is giving us fungal treasures.
The first exploders: take note of the faint lines on the puffball on the right
Opening out, you get this:
The eggs I referred to are from stinkdomes, Clathrus transvaalensis, which have come up abundantly in my yard this year. The timing hasn't been good though, this one got too much rain and exploded. You can see the opened egg-like capsule on the right
This one had a different kind of bad luck, it opened successfully but then the sun came out and roasted it
Either way, the spores will still disperse. The photographer is actually most disappointed....
These cute little purple furries are emerging in the rainy weather although I don't know what they are.
These bracket fungi withstand the sun pretty well although they only grow in rainy weather
The other colony on the privet stumps is now about three years old, less furry and wet in this picture. I'm wondering whether these are perhaps a kind of Turkey tail and thus edible.
There have been no ink caps or other parasol-type mushrooms this year. Perhaps it's due to the lack of shade since I cut down all the invasive trees so I could plant others that are better for the ecosystem. Time will tell
