Skip to content →

Midwinter on the Fleurieu’s southern edge: neither monster nor mushroom…

 

…but this post’s petite fruiting bodies are definitely fungal “fruit”.

I think they are examples of so-called “coral fungi”, as were many of the more weird and wonderful fungi we saw in Deep Creek National Park’s old-growth stringybark forest, on an easy, leisurely 75 minute walk.

Coral fungi are so-named because of their appearance.

The many and varied “coral” species are not necessarily each others’ close relatives, let alone members of the same genus.

 

 

A so-called “coral” fungus fruiting body, Deep Creek National Park, 12.04 pm, 20 June 2023. Photo ©️ Doug Spencer.

 

If you look carefully, you should be able to see a gnat in the “coral”; like “coral” as an adjective applied to some fungi, “gnat” is a very loose term.

Usually, “gnats” are small, non-biting flies; some of them are “fungus gnats”.

Fungus gnats’ diet includes fungi; gardeners are generally more bothered by these gnats than are fungi.

Click here to see Pat and Ed Grey’s  “A Little Book of Corals”; it deals only with Australia’s geographically smallest mainland state, but shows a spectacularly diverse array.

So too did “our” modest-sized forest at the bottom of South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula.

Published in Australia (not WA) nature and travel photographs