Tag Archives: fungus

Feb 15 2025
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Golden fungus farm

Friday 14th February 2025, 2.10pm (day 4,922)

Golden fungus, 14/2/25

The afternoon greatly benefited from the appearance of something that has not been seen in at least a week, namely the sun. Once it came out the idea of working through until 5pm was rapidly abandoned and I went out on a walk. I know fungi don’t need the sun directly, but this little clump shone in an agreeably golden fashion as a result of it. I like the little one on its own at the top — is it making a break for independence, or being shunned by its fellow gang members?

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Feb 13 2025
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Cooking with truffles

Wednesday 12th February 2025, 5.50pm (day 4,920)

Truffles, 12/2/25

Truffles have a marvellous flavour and I like cooking with them. But they’re also expensive, of course, so only tend to appear in the kitchen at certain points in the year — like, not long after Christmas, when the pot pictured here was one of my gifts. The grand opening has just taken place. Expect several truffle-flavoured meals in the next few days.

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Nov 05 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Fungus settlement

Sunday 5th November 2023, 1.15pm (day 4,455)

Fungus settlement, 5/11/23

When I captured this clutch of fungi engaged in consuming this old tree down by the river, I had a feeling that I’d been here before. And so I had — getting on for seven years ago; it was 7/1/2017 when this symbiosis was seen from another angle. They’re taking their time, as the tree carcass doesn’t seem any smaller than it did back then. But if you are a fungus, I guess you see time differently.

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Jun 28 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Sensuous ‘shrooms

Tuesday 27th June 2023, 2.40pm (day 4,324)

Nutclough fungi, 27/6/23

As seen living on a dead tree in the woods over the road. For some reason I find these very sensual-looking. It’s the whole smooth, marbly skin thing, and their curviness. Perhaps I have unfulfilled needs (which may just involve having mushrooms to eat, of course).

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May 30 2021
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Water butt ecosystem

Sunday 30th May 2021, 3.55pm (day 3,566)

If you can’t see why it’s a good idea to put a plank of wood like this in one’s garden water butt, you’ve clearly never had to get the drowned corpse of an indeterminate creature out of one, as we once did. Anyway, over the last few months, it has been colonised. The slime came first — now, this rather more photogenic red fungus, or that is what I assume it is. Who knows, give it a couple of thousand years and we might have entire civilisations existing in this water butt universe.

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Jan 01 2021
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Dead wood

Thursday 31st December 2020, 1.40pm (day 3,416)

With parties forbidden — by law — there was little to do except go for another walk as a way of trying to see the world. All in all, a fungus-ridden slab of dead wood seems to be a suitable metaphor for the last day of 2020. So be it.

My favourite photo of the year? Well, there have been fewer opportunities, all told, for creativity but I do like the one of the fox I took above Kentmere, Cumbria, on 4th March. I couldn’t believe that when I first saw it, it did not flee from me, but sat down to keep an eye on me (almost certainly because there were cubs nearby). It was certainly a poser, as foxes go.

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Nov 18 2020
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Wood fungus

Tuesday 17th November 2020, 2.25pm (day 3,372)

Wood fungus, 17/11/29.

Another deeply unexciting day. At the moment, this fungus probably has more of a social life than the whole human population of the UK. I chose this shot because I like the stately swelling of the grey trunk to either side; but the fungus has made it inside, and looks there to stay.

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Jan 07 2017
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Xylophage crag

Saturday 7th January 2017, 3.25pm (day 1,962)

Xylophages, 7/1/17

Your word of the day — xylophage, from the Greek ξύλον (xulon) “wood” and φαγεῖν (phagein) “to eat”, thus, ‘wood-eater’ — referring to the fungus that has started, slowly, to consume this giant fallen tree down by the Hebden Water. Close up like this it looks like a giant cliff, hence the title of this post.

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