Bristly Tropical Cup Season

Hello, everyone! I see you brought a lot of interesting mushrooms for #FungiFriday today.

I know it's difficult to find them because you have to walk through humid, muddy woods while being attacked by fierce mosquitoes. I know because I've been there.

So I also brought my mushroom harvest here today. Actually, this is similar to a farmer who is perplexed about his mushroom harvest. When you find enough of them, you are excited at first, but then you are perplexed as to what to do with them because they are not edible, and even if they could be, no one has ever tried. It's different if you find a lot of straw mushrooms because you can consume them with your family at home or sell them at the market.

This was on my mind when I noticed so many bristly tropical cup mushrooms (Cookeina tricholoma) in an oil palm plantation about a month ago. I've frequently found the same mushrooms on multiple mushroom hunts, and I've usually found them growing singly or in small groups (a pair or at most four mushrooms). But I was astounded to see them appear out of nowhere to form large groups on rotten palm fronds lying around.

It was quite amazing to find them in such large numbers while none of the other mushroom species were present. I believe this is their season.

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Happy #FungiFriday🍄

^{All of the images here are my own work, taken with Xiaomi POCO NFC smartphone and an assembled external macro lens.}