Bright-Colored Decomposers

I was outside a little while ago, thinking about clearing some weeds around the poles of beans, when something caught my eye. On a closer look, I realized they were fungi, bright orange ones peeking out of a dead log!

"What day is it today?" I asked the husband. "Friday, I think," he replied. "Perfect!" I ran inside the house for the phone. The #FungiFriday initiative by Ewkaw is on my mind.

I mentioned before that colored mushrooms or fungi are rare here, so these were an exciting find for me today. Unfortunately, my phone camera couldn't take more decent shots than these, reminding me of the need to buy something better. I'm sharing them anyway, lol!

They are tiny, by the way. According to GL, they are white rot decomposer fungi. Another source identified it as the Cinnabar polypore, which is a medicinal mushroom, the kind that grows year-round on fallen wood.

I wasn't sure which ones they were, so I left them be. No touching!

On that same wood, I found something else. It was as if the log had been splashed or painted with shiny yellow. It turned out to be a fungal growth, likely Ceriporia spissa, GL mentioned.

Accordingly, it is a plant pathogen (parasitic) that appears as a crustose, bright orange to yellow growth on the underside of hardwood logs. It is common during the rainy season. It makes sense as we have been having incessant rains here.

Well, the log had been lying there for months, and fungi had been growing on it, making it their home :) There are white ones too, polypore fungus, if I'm not mistaken. Some were new growth, others had been there before, and they are already turning greenish (moldy).

Well, I thought I was lucky to have encountered some bright-colored decomposers today. The weeding job is postponed tomorrow as the thunder is roaring and the rain may drop anytime soon!