Well it would have been a great day if I knew what any of these were...

While out working on a clients garden on a landscaping consignment last week, I got a little over ambitiously caught up in somewhat of a mushroom bender.

And although I don't normally do posts with just photos not having much to say, but on this post - I will do exactly just that, seeing that I know very minimal about the various types of fungi, other than the fact that I really appreciated their beauty in the moment.

The first fungal delight I happened across was a huge colony of tiny white mushrooms huddling up closely to one another under a barricade of overhanging rocks.

For a moment they almost seemed to be resembling a whole school of jellyfish, except they were not in the ocean.

I am not completely sure why, but they kept me engaged in a world of imagination for quite some time.

Just as an afterthought - I went back the next day, and found all the little mushrooms crumbled into a black pool of nothingness... So I decided to go around the garden and see if I could find any other mushroom villages - and I will admit that I was shocked at the amazing finds.

The next cluster of mushrooms I stumbled across was completely different to the first - they were growing on the bark of a nearby tree, and looked as if they were halfway wedged into the tree - I almost think that these are edible, but I wasn't certain enough to give them a lick, so I appreciated them through the lens of my camera in stead.

From above they almost looked clam like with the symmetrical designs, but from the bottom, the pale yellow underbelly made it appear almost floral

I especially appreciated the contrast between the dark colored, rough textured bark host, and the smooth, soft colored mushrooms growing on it.

With that said, off I went in my pursuit to find more mushrooms around the same garden, and sure enough, it didn't take me too long to discover a whole new type of mushroom growing in vicinity.

This time it was radiantly white flat topped mushrooms with elongated spore gills reaching down to the stem, these were growing off of a decaying tree branch that had fallen to the ground some time ago by the looks of it. Unlike the others there were not to many of these, but they were quite a bit larger than the previous two finds.

Then when I leaned in for a closer look, I saw this little fluffy beast, growing up from the earth underneath the very same branch, it was quite small and getting a good picture of it proved a bit difficult, so I decided to move along.

Then a few steps onward - I found some white fungi growing off of another fallen branch, at first it really didn't look like much, but when I looked closer I was quite surprised.

Here it wasn't the shape or color that interested me, but rather the texture and the patterns within the texture

The center was almost hairy, and as you move your attention a bit more outwards, it had a soft velvety appeal, and then on the edges of the mushroom it looked almost perforated.

But my mushroom journey was far from over - This was my next discovery in my garden mushroom hunt...

These were growing off of a cut off tree stump at the bottom of the garden, and these peachy centered funnel like mushrooms were really gorgeous to see.

Had they been slightly bigger I am sure that they would have passed for a natural water feature or even a bird bath after some decent rain.

Just look at the picture below, you can almost imagine water cascading down the ranks of these three strategically placed funnels.

And then there was this... I am pretty sure that this one is not a fungi, but it looked really cool - and I decided to add it to the collection anyway.

Next up was the lone soldier....

Out off all the mushrooms I came across, I think that this was the only one that didn't grow in company. It had a gorgeous grey canopy and looked a lot like a tiny umbrella, providing a bit of cover amidst the undergrowth for anything small enough to appreciate it.

From there, I continued my garden exploration, and came across a mossy rock with almost wood-like fungi growing on its shady side,

As well as a small cluster of less significant looking mushrooms, I found it almost anti-climatic for my camera adventure to end so abruptly, but then something completely out of the normal scope caught my eye...

They were huge clusters of translucent fungi, almost maroon on the bottom with a dark salmon finish at the top, and in retrospect of all the other paler mushroom finds, these really stood out.

I think the first cluster I found was slightly closer to their expiry date, but it didn't take long before I found more of the same fungi that was seemingly younger sprouts.

These fungi (or at least I am assuming that they are fungi) were so different from any other that I had ever come across, and I can only imagine that if velvet and jello had to get together and decide to make babies - that this would be the end result.

And with that thought in place, I simply couldn't resist touching them, I can tell you this, my senses were not disappointed, they felt exactly just like that... velvety jello...

Mind Blown...

That then brought me to the end of my excursion, and I got to go back to work feeling slightly more enthusiastic than how I started my day.