Connections Puzzle #772
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No clue how to format this on mobile
Where I live the driveways are normally cement and the roads are asphalt. Two different materials each with different curing times.
Those are some pretty meaty lobes
While this lichen doesn't fluoresce under UV, a little section did light up. I have wondered if it isn't another lichenicolous fungi colonising the Letharia.
Nope, everything seems to be early this year. I was shocked to find Hedgehogs and Hericium in July, we don't see those until at least September here.
Many years ago I tried adding this to my grow schedule and thankfully it never got to spread spores, never even fruited. Its not that it wasn't a fast grower, it was pretty vigorous (which is likely a big part of the problem) - the mycelium smelled like a rotting carcass and I binned that shit so fast as soon as I figured out what the stench was. I tell everyone this so people are possibly swayed even if lot of people don't have this issue when growing them.
Chanterelles have been exceptionally early this year from what Iβve seen from other folks in the PNW. I like to watch Mushroom Trail on yt and he was pulling them mid-June, I think he is in Washington. All of the forums are full of people picking chants, lobsters and hedgehogs for a few weeks now. I myself have noticed a lot of things we donβt see until at least the beginning of September (in my area), Gomphidius, Hericium, Helvella, Hedgehogs, etc.
Thankfully, I am not, I can barely take the heat here.
If you are on iNat there is a neat project called Molluscan Mycophagy where you upload observations of slugs and snails eating mushrooms. You upload an observation for each organism and use fields to indicate the "eating/eaten by" interaction.
I lucked out with my sandstone pods, I have plants and moss and they don't touch them.
I think its a Mica Cap but I am peeping a very cute isopod as well.
I'm not even totally sure its a mutation and there doesn't seem to be a lot of consensus on what it is or what causes it. It happens in cultivation and the wild, I believe its common to see chanterelles with this type of growth. I've tried to look it up and the reason that is stated most often is that it's due to pollutants, specifically petroleum contamination. I've never had anyone give any evidence for this, though. I do recall reading this, it states that rosecomb is the result of endogenous genetic instability but didn't want to pay to read the whole thing.