One small island; one hour's search - over 20 different fungi seen !

With the late August rains last year in 2023, came many fungal fruiting structures. A closer look at a cluster of tiny white dots next to the oak tree revealed that they were a fungus, a few mm in diameter with delicate ridges and long stems. Nearby were a couple of larger white mushrooms. I wondered what else was around and saw over 20 different fungi.

Wow! I had no idea, and I'm sure I did not recognize some as fungus and missed many - past years haven't yielded so many fruiting structures when we were there. The question became: are there some different stages of the same fungus? I revisited the fungi over the next week to look at changes and found even more fungi. A world of gorgeous fungi opened up (in books) while I tried to find out what was on the island.

Almost a year later, the fungi that were fruiting included some repeats, many boletes, and some new selections, bringing the total to over 30 late summer varieties. I suspect many fungi from 2023 might have shown up in 2024, but we left too early to find out. Here is a sample of the wide variety found. Only a few are identified. As their genomes are being studied, many fungi are being reclassified and renamed.

These tiny beauties above kicked off the search. The cylindrical ones on twigs are likely a bird's nest fungus, whose spore cases, i.e. the "eggs", were splashed out by recent rains from the one whose cream-colored "lid" is gone. At 5mm, this fungus is a tad larger than the tiny mushrooms on the left.

Black and white fungi. Note the tan puffballs (or possibly earthballs) amongst the leaf litter next to the black fungus. The black one reminds me of the black stubble cap fungus with its stiff scales, but it does not appear to have the light flesh below its scales that stubble caps have.

Growing on an oak stump, these 2 are the same fungus: the early stage is a small, cherry-red, dotted top and bottom which aged into the larger, rich brown, shelf-like fungus.

Delightfully named jelly baby is bright yellow with darker nobs on the ends of the stems; the coral fungus grew close by.

These probably are boletes, a soft type of fungus with tubes rather than gills; one has a parasitic fugus with fine threadlike stems, the other has a colorful underside and stem. Some of the tubes are visible where the cap is broken. The spores exit the tubes at the pores. Many of the boletes were partially eaten.

Note the tiny black critters (they bite!) on the splitting fungus. The splitting is characteristic of several fungi. The red-topped variety gets eaten fairly quickly - you can see that parts are gone already. Both have gills, which is where the spores are.

Three clusters of fungi are growing directly on logs. The white/tan ones' caps split as they aged. The black ant (bottom of the right dome) shows the size of the orange domes. The granular material may be part of the disintegrating veil that covered the fungus at an earlier stage. The side view of the cluster of fungus shows its wavy edges and gills.

This flat fungus changed colors from light taupe to almost charcoal but kept its light colored edge and velvet-like texture. The round ringed one grew very near.

These are a few of the intensely colored fungi. The 1st with colored rings ages into a bowl; it might be a milkcap. The last is a tough, shiny top polypore.

So, no complaints on a rainy day... the results are amazing.

By Winifred McGowan

Winifred (Winky) McGowan came to the islands at a young age to visit her grandmother, aunt, and sometimes her cousins, and continued coming with her parents for several years. She and her husband became owners of Little Sagastaweka Island in more recent years. Sagastaweka Island, the other island bought in the late 1800s by her great grandparents, the Finleys, was a gathering place for a large, extended family.

Winifred spent much of her working life in conservation related jobs, inspired by her love of plants, maps, and the outdoors. You can guess that the islands were part of that inspiration.

See Winky's other TI Life articles here - more to watch for and more to enjoy.