Fairy fungi?

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Delicate yet rubbery, translucently flesh-coloured, looking more like fairy breast enhancers than fungi, these odd little cups appeared on my shadehouse ‘floor’ over a week ago and have sat there, unchanged, ever since.

Breast enhancer fungi

I love the way fungi just pop up where they’ve never been seen before, prop for a while to propagate in slow, strange and secret ways, then simply wizen and disappear.

Not so unlike human lives, I suppose.

So if the fairies are trying to look like Barbies, maybe this fungi, that came up in my orchard last Autumn, belonged to Ken?

Kenfungus

If anyone can identify these sexy fungi please leave me a comment . My fungi book is old and short on colour illustrations (Common Australian Fungi, Tony Young, NSW University Press, 1983).  I need a better one – any recommendations?

8 thoughts on “Fairy fungi?”

  1. Hi, I was trying to identify “Phallus Rubicundus”. Thanks for the info. We found it on Long Island, New York. Very unusual. My 7 year old son was going to enter a picture he took of it in a “WOW” cometition and wanted some more info. Now we have someplace to start. I’m afraid it might be too wow, though for elementary school.

  2. Hi Dale,
    Glad you liked the book. We are indeed a rare breed. And I am finding the coincidences mounting as readers come back to me about the book.
    Cheers
    Sharyn

  3. Hi Sharyn
    Just finished your book (which, you may remember, I bought from you at Watermark). Of course, I really enjoyed it, I expected that; but how rare is it to find another female, approaching 60 (I actually just passed it) who is a regular contributor to Country viewpoint, writes for alternative magazines (I write for Grass Roots) is a full-time writer, AND has also lived with a luthier on solar power!
    You ditched the luthier and kept the solar power; I ditched the solar power and kept the luthier.
    There is so much in your attitude (hate machines too – never addressed a bandsaw without sweaty palms) and aspirations that run parallel to mine.
    Great stuff! Keep me informed.
    warm wishes
    Dale Jacobsen

  4. Hi Green Lynette. Glad you like the book. As for arthritis treatment, I think each case is different and I’d suggest you first get checked out by a good naturopath like my Pat Collins (see Total Health & Education Centre on the lInks list). I don’t know what area you are in but maybe Pat can recommmend someone.
    My email gets flooded with necessary environmental info every day and I can’t get into direct email contacts, sorry! And sorry I didn’t check to reply to comments for so long too.

  5. hello sharyn,
    loved your book i’m a long time member of the greens. would like some further info re arthritis treatment etc i’ve tried to find your email address to no avail, i am a computer ignoramus!
    sincerley
    lyn pointer

  6. Kerrie: the mind boggles, doesn’t it?!

    Mark: Thanks for that. Will keep an eye out for the book.
    If I believed in creation, I’d wonder what came first in the Creator’s mind, as He/She ran out of design ideas: human appendages or fungi shapes? leaving aside our nomenclature order.

  7. As for the fungi….

    I’m not entirely sure what the first one is though Sharyn is on the money with the cup fungi category – Peziza sp perhaps??

    The second one is Phallus rubicundus (no explanation required for that latin!!)

    As for field guides, I would recommend -A Field Guide to Australian Fungi by Bruce Fuhrer (2005) Bloomings Books Pty Ltd, Melb.

    Skye

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