FungiFriday - Magic Mushrooms & Glutinous Polypore

It's been a while since my last fungi share and because I have collected quite a few photographs taken in different days during my walks, I figured it's time to write about them today. One of my favorite routes when going for my leg workouts is the trail leading to the dirt road and it's where these ones were found.

These, according to Google Lens are Magic Mushrooms or Psilocybe Cubensis. They are commonly known as shrooms, golden halos, cubes, or gold caps. They belong to the fungus family Hymenogastraceae and were previously known as Stropharia cubensis." _(Wiki)

_{This is the before shot and the first photo above was photographed a few days later.}


They were growing on a mossy area and whilst some kept their conical shapes, other caps have cracked, spread almost flat and some have fallen too. Per Wiki, this type of fungi is a pan-tropical species and they occur in the Gulf Coast states and southeaster US, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica and other parts of the Central American countries. They are also found in Southeast Asia, so that explains why we have them around here.

The way this shot was taken is rather funny. Their stems seem to have disappeared, lol!

And these few are already rotting. The biggest of them looks like a part of its cap had been burnt. I didn't really check what happened to it but maybe, that's how it decays. The white cracks on the cap are quite interesting.

Below is the biggest surprise I ever had on my walk and got on cam (please pardon the blurry shot). Was really mesmerized when I saw it. Although I had been seeing mushrooms around here, this was my first time to see one literally break out from under the ground. Never really thought fungi grow from under there. That probably because most of what I saw in the past were growing on decaying logs and tree trunks. Truth be told, the husband had a lot of laughter at my expense because of my ignorance, lol!

Can't help including this one. It had water droplet on it.

These on the other hand were photographed this morning and were identified by Google Lens as Gloeoporus dichrous or Gelatinous-pored Polypore.

• Gloeoporus means "a glutinous or sticky polypore";
• Dichrous means "two colors" in reference to the two distinct colors of the cap and pore surface. _(Source)

They are growing on the dead log at the backyard. These ones obviously hairy and the orange colors on the top cap (above photo) are quite distinct. Below image is the underside of the cap.

There are two of them there, a larger one (over 3 inch in length) which some weeds had penetrated on, and a small piece probably 1 inch long. It fascinates me seeing different types of fungi sprout from the same log over the years. Perhaps in the coming months, these will disappear and new ones will grow again. Would be sharing them again for sure!

This by the way is my contribution to #FungiFriday hosted by @ewkaw. Thank you for this initiative :)

Meanwhile, it's Fri-Yay already!

The sun is bright today and things are looking great so far but I'm kinda missing the birds' chirping. It's so quiet this morning which is good but it feels a little odd. Maybe I'm still adjusting after being around people and a lot of chitchats in the past two days.

Anyhow, here's to a fantastic Friday! 🥂🍻

_{All photos are my own. 07072023/10:40ph}