Zoo Mushrooms
I took a walk around the zoo on my lunch break last week with the goal of finding and identifying as many mushrooms as possible (in 45 minutes!). These little ascomycete mushrooms are the ones I call lemon drops Bisporella citrina.
These appear to be violet tooth polypores, Trichaptum biforme.
A soggy winecap in the mulch behind the playground. (Stropharia rugosoannulata)
A lone coprinoid mushroom emerges from a planter on the main greeting.
These mushrooms start out more or less bell shaped, then open up and turn to black liquid at the edges.
Here are two relatives growing on nearby sticks: The larger shelves are Stereum ostrea, the smaller are Stereum rameale, which I used to call S. hirsutum.
I haven't identified these little shelves yet (a Panellus or relative?) but I had to photograph them because of what they were growing on: that's not wood.
It's the old hollow stem of last year's poke plants.
This is the spore-producing surface of those mushrooms.
These stumped me at first, but apparently Daedaleopsis confragosa is quite variable.
The gill-like pores give it away.
And these were the pick of the day, bright and shiny Reishi mushrooms, Ganoderma lucidum, growing at the base of a very alive and healthy looking red oak. This weak parasite is a prized mushroom among practitioners of Asian herbal medicine.