Fungi Friday - Winter Fungi

Hello FungiFriday! It's been some time since I've last posted. The onset of winter, the bitter cold, and reduced daylight have brought my excursions into the woods to a slow trickle, and my observations of fungi have slowed accordingly.

After taking a few months off from posting my fungal finds, and the first hints of spring returning to my corner of the globe, I am back with a new collection of beautiful mushrooms to share with you all. Here is to a new year of exploring the amazing biodiversity of the Kingdom Fungi! I hope that you enjoy!

Over the last several months, I have made only a handful of trips into the woods to hunt for mushrooms. The thick blanket of snow that covers my region of the world makes hunting for most species a futile task at this time of the year, though some opportunistic species still find their niche within the ecosystem to make themselves known in an otherwise bleak and seemingly lifeless environment. The versatility and hardiness of these species never ceases to amaze me. Their ability to, not only survive, but thrive in such harsh conditions is a testament to the profound adaptability this Kingdom of Life possesses.

Among my most notable finds in the last several months include orchard toothcrust (Sarcodontia crocea), honeydew eater (Scorias spongiosa), and beech bark canker fungus (Neonectria faginata).

I was particularly excited to come across orchard toothcrust since it is a globally endangered fungal species. This elusive and threatened species produces a fleshly fruiting body that adorns the wood of dead apple trees with hundreds to thousands of delicate, yellow, tooth-like projections. Despite this species being globally endangered, this observation marks my third confirmed sighting of the species in my region. The high concentration of apple orchards locally, and the subsequent conversion of old farm and orchard land into public parks and forests over the previous decades, seems have inadvertently created suitable conditions for this species to survive here. I hope to find more of this species in the months and years to come.

Though much less rare that orchard toothcrust, honeydew eater is another species I am always excited to find when out looking for fungi. This specialist species can only be found attached to American beech trees, where it forms a sponge-like mass that is initially straw-like to buff in color, then darkening to all black as the tissue ages. While these fungi are found directly attached to the trunks or limbs of American beech trees, they do not actually feed on the wood of the tree itself. Instead, honeydew eater specializes in consuming the secretions of aphids that feed on the sap of the American beech tree. These sugar-rich secretions are known as "honeydew," hence the name "honeydew eater" for this particular fungi - another amazing example of fungi's ability to adapt to and access even the most obscure sources of nutrients within an ecosystem.

In contrast to my excitement when finding orchard toothcrust and honeydew eater, I was deeply saddened to find rather advanced specimens of beech bark canker fungus on one recent walk through the woods. This species is a tree disease that causes deformities and eventually mortality in American beech trees. The disease is thought to have been first introduced to North America in the late 1800s to early 1900s in Nova Scotia. In the time since, the disease has spread across the vast majority of the Northeastern United States, having only recently made it as far West as my home state of Michigan within the last decade. While the disease itself is not particularly aggressive in terms of its rate of spread or time to kill individual trees, it is not common where I live, and the mechanism of its spread appears to have been entirely preventable. This disease is most commonly spread by scale insects that bore holes into the bark of American beech trees to access their sap, much like that of the aphids that produce honeydew. In the instance of beech bark canker disease however, the fungi is using the insects as a vector to gain access beneath the trees bark to initiate the infection. Of the trees that I observed to be infected in the area, every single one had been carved into by previous visitors to the park. These gashes in the tree bark provided an easy access point for scale insects and their fungal hitchhikers to make there way into the tree. It's hard for me to blame these passerbys for their misdeeds since they likely had no idea what vulnerabilities they were creating to this ecosystem, but the irreversible damage has been done nonetheless. This was a salient reminder to me that nature and humanity are not separate entities; actions that we take on a daily basis, regardless of how mundane they may appear to be, have the ability to influence the natural world around us. What we do matters.

If you have made it this far into my post, thank you for reading :) I hope that you have learned something new and join me on my journey to learn more about the world around me through the ecology of the mushrooms around me. Happy Fungi Friday!

Orange Hobnail Canker (Amphilogia gyrosa):

Honeydew Eater (Scorias spongiosa):

Lumpy Bracket (Trametes gibbosa):

Velvet Foot (Flammulina velutipes):

Ceramic Parchment (Xylobolus frustulatus):

Botryobasidium aureum or Botryobasidium simile:

Perenniporia ohiensis:

Turkey-Tail (Trametes versicolor):

Luminescent Panellus (Panellus stipticus):

Beech Bark Canker Fungus (Neonectria faginata):

Common Tarcrust Fungus (Diatrype stigma):

Birch Woodwart (Jackrogersella multiformis):

Resinous Polypore (Ischnoderma resinosum):

Benzoin Bracket (Ischnoderma benzoinum):

Fomes excavatus:

Winter Polypore (Lentinus brumalis):

Brittle Cinder (Kretzschmaria deusta):

Clustered Bonnet (Mycena inclinata):

Helicogloea compressa:

Stereum lobatum:

Trembling Crust (Merulius tremellosus):

Orchard Toothcrust (Sarcodontia crocea):

Asian Beauty (Radulomyces copelandii):

Yellow Fairy Cups (Calycina citrina):

Bicolored Bracket (Gloeoporus dichrous):

Crimped Gill (Plicaturopsis crispa):

Brick Cap (Hypholoma lateritium):

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