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shadylane
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All Those Fungis To Have Around

There are more than 70,000 species of them, Fungi do not make their own food using sunlight, like some algae. But more closely related to animals than plants.

Fungi are found everywhere, even our own bodies. Some of them live by breaking down dead organic matter. They are a perfect recycler and play a vital role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem.

Familiar fungi are used everyday such as yeasts, mold in food, and in medicines such as penicillin.

Fungi are remarkable, their cell walls contain a tough protein called chitin, which makes them waterproof and prevents them from drying out. Which is the same protein that is found in the skeleton of insects.

Here are some examples of a tree fungi which I have found on our popular tree which I believe to be "Dryad's saddle" (polyporus squamosus). It being attached to the dead tree that here was still standing. On the underside you can see the pores that make up of tubes packed closely together.

[img]https://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b396/shadylane5acres/naturemushroom3.jpg[/img]



[img]https://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b396/shadylane5acres/naturemushroom2.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b396/shadylane5acres/naturemushroom3.jpg[/img]


This species is very large, I would say one foot wide and had a dish or cup formation...nature does play a huge role, for it was holding water when I had first found it.



Not all Fungi are neat in appearance and grow readly to give back that goodness of nature in return. There are those destructive fungi known as parasites that have been responsible for terrible famines, such as the Irish potato famine in the late 1840's. Destructive fungi include the blights, black spots and rusts, on our garden plants. I'm sure we have noticed them at one time or another.

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PunkRotten
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Cool, thanks for posting this.

bangstrom
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Nice pics!

Here are two of my many favorite microbes.
Some fungi, such as Trichoderma harzianum, are beneficial for plants. This fungus helps plants absorb nutrients from the soil and it is also used as a bio-fungicide.
https://agropedia.iitk.ac.in/?q=content/trichoderma-bio-control-agent-management-soil-born-diseases
https://www.entomology.wisc.edu/mbcn/kyf504.html

Physarum polycephalum, the 'grape-cluster' slime mold (an amoeba not a fungus) can find its way through a maze and its growth patterns have been incorporated into computer programs that can be used to design complex routing systems such as where to best locate cell phone towers. It may someday prove to be useful in bio-computers.
https://www.slashgear.com/yellow-slime-mold-may-hold-the-key-to-bio-computers-29204921/

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shadylane
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Thank you for sharing your interest in fungi bangstrom, and no offence to your thoughts on trichoderma, making roots on many plants become twice their normal growth in poor soil and drought weather conditions. But it too has it's resistance to pesticides, and the like makes me wonder.
Although pathogens have some ugly sides given, it to has a natural duty of nature to play, if not massed produced as a microbial insecticide or bio insecticid.

I would have to rank trichoderma right up there with diatomaceous earth. I wouldnt use neither in my garden or through out the soil beneath my feet. That's just me, Give me the fungi.
Other gardeners find it useful? I couldn't figure out how diatomaceous earth could tell the difference between the good from the bad when all type of creatures live at just the surface of the soil.

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Kisal
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I've never paid much attention to fungi in my garden, probably because I'm primarily a container gardener. However, one of my hobbies used to be photographing various fungi I found when I was out hiking in the forests. I have some great pics, but I'm not sure where they are anymore. (I don't think they ever made it into any of the gazillion albums I have around here ... :lol: ) And, of course, they're 35mm film, not digital. In fact, I might have had them made into slides. Yeah, that was back in the olden days. :roll: ;)

Still, I wanted to compliment you on your photos. I enjoyed them. :)

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shadylane
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Thank you Kisal, I think they can put slide pics on a CD nowa days. But what can't they do :lol:

I do like the hikes around the homestead area checking on nature. Here is another fungi photo that I ment to post but somehow didn't make it with the others.
[img]https://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b396/shadylane5acres/naturemushroom.jpg[/img]

I have areas here that grow the odd fungis I believe to be called "deadman's fingers" they should hopefully pop back up and I'll try to snap a pic...the 35mm are not to far fetched or foreign to me :D

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Kisal
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Oh, I'm sure they can. The problem is remembering where I stashed them away. :lol:

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shadylane
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The more information I dig up about fungi the more intrigued I become. What a strange world you enter with fungi, full of surprises, color and shapes all defined by their habits of growth.

Scientists put fungi on a lower level or apart from that of plant life, and this is due to their lack of making chlorophyll, which is essential for making their own food.. Their reproduction can be seen as the same to that of some plant life, re-seeding compared to tiny spores both released to become air born. Hitching rides on insects and animals being transported to distant places.
Although plants do have a reputation for their seed viability for sixty years, fungi goes underground and become a network of working threads called mycelium and they can live for decades, even centuries. I say, I find that unique.

Once the spores land in a favorable location, the mycelium begins to develop. There the mycelium produces swellings that enlarge and eventually push above the surface forming its fleshy structure the mushroom. Fungi can be surprising, some having the ability to produce their own glowing light, and some develop into mysterious ornamental forms. Most are remembered for their color of blues, red, coral. Mushrooms themselves are short lived once above ground, all are hosts in obtaining their food. That too varies among different species, some on decaying wood, others nourish themselves on living plant material. Mushrooms depending on other mushrooms, or on animals which they cause disease or death. Once such species is the Orange colored Cordyceps which grow on insects. And thinking about spores carried off by insects mentioned at the beginnig, sends me digging deeper to another interesting fact on spores, which are in a different classification all their own. Now that sound like another FUN-gi journey.


While raking up the remains of a dead pine tree, I uncovered what I believe to be a mycelium swelling. I covered them back up with what I found to be a couple of inches of soil, trying not to disturb. Our weather here has been so very hot and dry and in weeks upon returning to that area I find the outcome of what developed.

[img]https://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b396/shadylane5acres/shadylane5/Blooms%20and%20Treasure%20Finds/1fungigrowth.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b396/shadylane5acres/shadylane5/Blooms%20and%20Treasure%20Finds/2outsidecovering.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b396/shadylane5acres/shadylane5/Blooms%20and%20Treasure%20Finds/3uncoveredfungi.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b396/shadylane5acres/shadylane5/Blooms%20and%20Treasure%20Finds/4myceliumthreadsoffungi.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b396/shadylane5acres/shadylane5/Blooms%20and%20Treasure%20Finds/5fungigrowth.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b396/shadylane5acres/shadylane5/Blooms%20and%20Treasure%20Finds/6furtherstagesoffungigrowth.jpg[/img]

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shadylane
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Dead Man's Fingers or "Xylaria fungi" These fungi usually grow at ground level on rotten wood. They have a firm white flesh inside and shed copious black spores. They start out single and then form a group as they grow...


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shadylane
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So very sorry about the pictures, I updated my pictures in a album to organize them. I didn't realize that they would be deleted from the posting...

Herer are the deadmans' fingers,



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the others can be viewed at photobucket under Fun-Gui. Using Shadylane.



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