Funky Fungi in Bokkemanskloof Estate, Hout Bay South Africa

Today has been a strange sort of day for me. This morning I didn't really feel like writing, so it didn't happen. Rather unlike me, the mornings are generally when I can sit down fresh and it tends to just happen. As the day went on, I became more and more subdued, my mind was in a different place, my heart too I guess.

So now it's evening and with dinner done, dusted and enjoyed by the little ravenous (almost) 5 year old that is growing faster than I can keep up with, I went through a few photos and cast my mind back to a walk around an estate called Bokkemanskloof that I visited many years ago. It was full of funky fungi that I still haven't been able to identify. Perhaps a fungi fundi can have a shot at some of these?

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During the winter months everything is rather damp in this area as it's in Hout Bay which is part of the Table Mountain range. There are a lot of fallen branches and logs, most of which are pines that these fungi tend to grow on.

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Some of them are capped and some of them are more like puff-balls. Fungi were never really my speciality as very few grew in the areas that I worked, so seeing so many species all in one place was quite exciting for me.

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These orange ones look like they should have fairies living under them. I can only imagine what fun stories Lory and I could come up with if she had been walking around with me that day.

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This particular puff ball looking one reminds me way too much of an egg from the movie Alien. That movie freaked me out the first time I saw it. I was probably only 6 years old at the time and couldn't imagine letting Lory watch that...it gave me nightmares for weeks and scared me sh*tless. I'm quite sure that HR Giger got some of his inspiration from things like that fungus up there.

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These last ones are growing on the cut down stump of an invasive species (probably an Acacia species) and you can see the remnants of the blue dye that is used to indicate that the tree has been poisoned so that it won't regrow. Clearly the herbicide doesn't negatively affect fungi which I thought was an interesting observation.

While I encounter the odd fungus here and there, I've never trusted my own identification of them as there seem to be so many species that are similar in appearance, but these are all quite colourful and distinct, so hopefully someone will know a few of them and can enlighten me. This is my contribution to #FungiFriday by Hive account@ewka