Mushrooms

I don't just limit myself to taking pictures of my family, our pets, birds and insects. I actually have taken pictures of other things. :-) Here is a strange, to me, mushroom I saw on a recent walk at lunch. I've never seen such a pure, white mushroom before. And the shape, with the protrusions, is new to me, too.

Here is another picture from another day of some strange mushrooms that look more like pancakes that someone dropped by the trail. These were all together in this one spot and I could see no more of this type anywhere around. That is the surprising thing about mushrooms. So often you see just one in an area. Mushrooms aren't plants so it's not really correct to compare them with trees and bushes but usually, you see large clusters of things that grow out of the ground. And, of course, there are types of mushrooms that do grow in groups like the Fairy Ring Mushroom. But most often, you just see one, lone mushroom. I wonder why this is.

Here is another one my daughter found in our backyard. I love the shape of mushrooms. There is just something about the smooth, streamlined shape that appeals to me. They look modern and ancient at the same time. They seem alien when compared with the plants, trees and bushes with which they usually growing.

Here's a final picture taken near our office but not out in the woods. These grew up, overnight, right next to our parking lot. That's another interesting feature of mushrooms; they grow up so fast and look "grown up" from the beginning. They don't seem to start out as "seedlings" (or would you call them "spore-lings"?) and then mature. The colors are so varied. For such simple organisms, you'd think there wouldn't be so many different colors. I wonder how much it depends on the soil in which they grow and how much sun they get. I'm sure genetics has something to do with it but how important are the growing conditions? Cultivated mushrooms are pretty uniform but that's what the growers want, I suppose. They keep them in a known type of "soil" and in the dark so they don't get any surprises. Well, I like the taste of mushrooms but I only eat cultivated ones. I don't like too many surprises when I eat. Just when I take pictures.