Mushrooming

It's been a couple of weeks since I last checked this year's mushroom crop so Fern and I went out to Mount Douglas Park for a few hours on Wednesday to see what has popped up out of the ground. The Coral Fungi pictured above is one of the beauties we found.

Coral Fungus (Clavulinopsis corniculata)

To continue the theme of weird shapes of mushrooms or fungi, here is another one I always enjoy seeing at this time of year, a Coral Fungus. They are not related to those little organisms that make reefs but are named because of their similar appearance to some oceanic corals. There are about 30 different kinds of fungi loosely grouped as Coral Fungi. This one is distinctive enough so that I will venture to identify it as Clavulinopsis corniculata.

Coral Fungus

Fern and I went out to Goldstream Park yesterday to see if we could see any salmon spawning. We saw a few - immense fish tiredly lolling in backwaters on the edges of the stream - but the run has clearly only just begun. A visit to Goldstream is always a delight in any case, just to walk among the immense trees and lush moss-gardens. Above is a fungus new to me - apparently there are a large number of fungi in this "coral" family so I cannot identify this one precisely. No matter what's its name, it's a beauty.