Thursday 12 November 2009

A whole new world


I have just discovered a whole new world...Fungi !!

Yesterday I found this.......growing on the stump of a pittosporum.


(click on image to enlarge.)

Top photos taken 11 Nov. 09

Bottom photos 12 Nov. 09

1. Top view 2. Underside 3. Side growing against the wood 4. On mass










As someone who always needs to find out about something rather than just admire it, I made a few enquires as to its identity. A few ideas have been put forward ( The most likely Giant polypore ) but like many things definitive ID is always difficult by photos alone.Hopefully over the next few days as the fungi develops identifying it may become easier.

There is so much to learn, so many fungi are very alike. Colour, texture, smell, spore patterns, location, time of the year etc. all help in correctly identifying a species.

I guess in a way it's no different from learning to identify birds, trees, flowers, insects and the like it's just I've never really 'looked' into fungi before.

I think I'm hooked.

2 comments:

The Squirrel Family said...

I too love photographing Funghi, but still never quite got around to identifying them!

New follower to your blog but like what I see so far

Sandra said...

Thank you :-) My posting have been few and far between lately. I must get back into a routine.

There are some lovely fungi around just now, ideal weather for them. Maybe I should spend a little time photographing and indentifying them before the frosts arrive.