Friday fungal fun

The answer to today’s puzzle will depend on YOU!  I have no idea what this is.  (I’m not a mycologist.  And did you know that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants?)

Anyway.  I found this on our wood chip mulch today.  We always get interesting fungal fruiting bodies on wood chips – one year we even got morels.  But I’ve never seen this type before.

If you can’t tell, these are round and furry.  They really remind me of a mold.

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Linda Chalker-Scott

Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott has a Ph.D. in Horticulture from Oregon State University and is an ISA certified arborist and an ASCA consulting arborist. She is WSU’s Extension Urban Horticulturist and a Professor in the Department of Horticulture, and holds two affiliate associate professor positions at University of Washington. She conducts research in applied plant and soil sciences, publishing the results in scientific articles and university Extension fact sheets. Linda also is the award-winning author of five books: the horticultural myth-busting The Informed Gardener (2008) and The Informed Gardener Blooms Again (2010) from the University of Washington Press and Sustainable Landscapes and Gardens: Good Science – Practical Application (2009) from GFG Publishing, Inc., and How Plants Work: The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do from Timber Press (2015). Her latest effort is an update of Art Kruckeberg’s Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest from UW Press (2019). In 2018 Linda was featured in a video series – The Science of Gardening – produced by The Great Courses. She also is one of the Garden Professors – a group of academic colleagues who educate and entertain through their blog and Facebook pages. Linda’s contribution to gardeners was recognized in 2017 by the Association for Garden Communicators as the first recipient of their Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award. "The Garden Professors" Facebook page - www.facebook.com/TheGardenProfessors "The Garden Professors" Facebook group - www.facebook.com/groups/GardenProfessors Books: http://www.sustainablelandscapesandgardens.com

6 thoughts on “Friday fungal fun”

  1. A larger image linked to the “thumbnail” would be nice.

    Personally, never seen any fungi that looked even close!

    How did the morels cook up in your veggie stir-fry?

    Reply

  2. Believe that’s a type of dung fungus – maybe Phycomyces – though I’m no fungus expert. I’ve usually seen these on cat droppings. Another “famous” dung fungus is Pilobolus crystalinus, immortalized in “The Fung in the Dung” – found here: http://tinyurl.com/24ow6ch

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  3. Alan, we can only upload small images, unfortunately. (The morels, unfortunately, got consumed by something or someone else before I got around to picking them.) And Bob, we *thought* these were emerging from the ground. But I guess I could do some destructive sampling and find out! Thanks for the suggestion (I think).

    Reply

  6. I recently found this growing in a border in my garden. Three clumps were exactly where a cat has been leaving me a present so i guess that where it came from. Never seen anything like it before.

    Reply

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