Sunday 8 January 2012

Fun with fungi

I spotted this fungus a few metres in from the edge of the forest. Before I charged in to take a close up, I noticed that it was sharing its spot with something else.

3 January 2012

Not the lawyer vine, although they can be a real nuisance. This...another bloody stinging tree.


So, this is the best photo I've got. The fungus is large and is supported on a relatively slender stem that ends in what appears to be an attachment disc. If any of you fine fungi people have an idea of its identity, I'd love to know.

3 January 2012

On firmer ground with this one. (I'm sure I could work that into a pun if I gave it some thought.) This is — as far as I can recall — the only species of non-earthstar or -stinkhorn fungus to which I have ever been able to put a name. So when Denis at the Nature of Robertson posted on this species, Cyptotrama aspratum, from his neck of the woods, I got quite excited. Because I recognised a fungus.

5 December 2011


5 December 2011


13 December 2011


13 December 2011


Close up of above


13 December 2011

This map from the Australian Virtual Herbarium shows the current (registered) holdings of C. aspratum in Australian herbaria. And makes me feel totally guilty that I didn't collect a specimen and send it to Melbourne for their collection.

Specimen data reproduced from Australia's Virtual Herbarium
with permission of the Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria Inc.


Still, one thing at a time, eh? I've only just got over the excitement of identifying a fungus.