I took a camera with me this morning when I ran the dogs. We’ve had three weeks of very wet weather (a flash flood killed a girl a few days ago and a tornado killed a lady up the road in Northwood a week and a half ago) – if it’s not pouring all day, there’s almost always thunderstorms in the afternoon. I figured the wet ought to encourage fungi to fruit – turned out to be a good guess. I’ve pulled Toads and Toadstools
The Oyster River in August is normally low enough to walk across using stepping stones without getting your feet wet – this is obviously not a normal year.
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I think one of the local bruins ate too many green apples and gave himself an upset stomach.
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The Sun God. It’s not hard to see why toadstools are so important to old religions and folkways. You’ve got solar discs and phalluses emerging spontaneously from Mom Earth – let the myth making proceed!
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The big guy – Amanita. I still like Wasson’s soma theory, even if there are other equally good candidates – its a rippin’ idea.
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Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
A big nod to Lord Whimsy for the proximate stimulus and to the Querencistas, where fungoblogging is a tradition.
There’s been a lot of pale beige, flat topped toadstools around. Haven’t seen anything like any of those, though!
There was a HUGE chicken mushroom in my folks’ backyard last year, it was really cool looking, then some neighbor kid smashed it. 🙁
I love your fungi slideshow! There’s nothing like being an old fashioned naturalist, just wandering around the woods with a curious eye, documenting what you see. I love photo sets like that. It really me wonder what I’m doing in a city.
Thanks for providing a little bit of nature for a poor urban transplant who misses home in the woods.
Glad folks enjoyed the post – it was fun wandering around, gathering the pix. It’s a productive month for fungus blogging – more here, here and here.