The day is cloudy, and a bit of rain will probably fall very soon. I just returned from the peninsula in the bay of Medulin, my hometown ...
... where I was searching for something to put in today's Fungi Friday post. Here you can see a trio of Mycena capillaries mushrooms. While photographing these small, elegant mushrooms ...
... I saw an insect enter the scene.
This is the Aelia acuminata. Commonly known as the Bishop's Mitre Shieldbug.A nice, unexpected addition to this Fungi-oriented post.
Up to this point, you saw only the upper part of the Mycena capillaries fruiting body. In this photograph, the focus is on the interesting parts near the ground. These details mixed with the moss that grows around the mushrooms can easily get overlooked.
The base of each stalk is covered with formations that look like hair.
On the seashore, not far from the meadow where the Mycena capillaries were photographed ...
... the upper edge of the intertidal zone is covered with strange plants that resemble the Martian vegetation described by H.G.Wels in The War of the Worlds novel.
This is the Arthrocnemum macrostachyum, a plant native to coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, and also parts of the Middle East, where it grows in coastal and inland salt marshes, alkali flats, and other habitats with saline soils.
About fifty meters further, the Little egret (Egretta garzetta) was resting in the shallow water of the bay.
Here you can see one of the many small brown mushrooms that I found in the same area. I can't tell you the name of the species.
Here you can see a darker little mushroom with a slightly taller stalk. The name of the species is still unknown to me.
This one is very elongated and the cap is pretty small. In the following photograph ...
... you can take a better, more up-close look at that cap. In this photograph, you may also notice a bit of sunlight on the mushroom.
At this point, the movements in of clouds let a bit of sunshine pass through. For half an hour or so, the weather was partially sunny in a hazy way.
I continued photographing the small brown mushrooms.
Some of them were drying out ...
... as you can see in the last two photographs.
After a bit of walking and sniffing around ...
... I came across a considerably bigger find. I mean, this is still small, but when compared to the previous mushrooms, can be called big. It looks like some Entoloma mushroom. Entoloma vernum maybe. Very maybe.
I could be completely wrong here - and I probably am.
In the following photograph ...
... you can see two, pretty similar-looking mushrooms ...
... grew a couple of meters further ...
... among the thorny leaves of some fresh, young thistle plant. The caps on these young fruiting bodies were still closed ...
... but a meter or two from them, there was a completely developed mushroom of the same kind.
The base of the stalk was covered by dense fungal growth. It looks like some kind of mold. If you enlarge this enlargeable photograph, you may notice a little reddish dot on that fluffy, white surface.
Here I mounted the macro lens and got closer ...
... so you can take a good look at the Dicyrtoma fusca ...
... a minuscule springtail that inhabits humid, moldy places.
Some minutes later ...
... the Suillia fuscicornis fly landed on the same mushroom.
Here you can see two decaying mushrooms photographed an hour later. Probably Russula or Lactarius. The state of decay makes them tricky to identify.
The rotting, partially dried-out caps are covered with green mold, and you can see an ant on one of those caps.
This green mold ...
... on another, much smaller cap ...
... of the Agrocybe pediades mushrooms. While photographing a group of decaying, desiccated mushrooms of this species I felt a pretty strong déjà vu sensation. Later, at home, I discovered that I photographed the same group of mushrooms which I already photographed eighteen days ago. In this enlargeable picture made of two photographs, you can see how the mushrooms looked then compared to know. The current, dried-out version is in the left half of the picture.
@borjan/mushroom-monday-agrocybe-pediades-and
This is a link to that old post from the 1st of November, in which the Agrocybe pediades mushrooms were the main protagonists.
These two Clitocybe dealbata mushrooms were photographed on the meadow with a nice, wide view of the bay. I had no pine trees in front of me, so when I took a look at the sea ...
... I noticed a bird in the shallow water. This is the Numenius arquata, commonly known as the Eurasian curlew.
Here you can take a look at the tops of the caps of those two Clitocybe dealbata mushrooms.
This is another mushroom of the same species. But this one is older, so it looks considerably different.
Clitocybe dealbata are poisonous. Muscarine is the main toxic component in this species.
Here you can see yet another Clitocybe dealbata mushroom. I photographed this one ...
... mainly because of the tiny white mushrooms that grew nearby ...
... so you can compare the two.
I don't know the name of this elegant little species.
Could be some kind of Marasmius. Or Mycena.
Here you can see the same kind of mushroom, but this one photographed ten-fifteen meters further, under the trees ...
... is growing through a relatively thick layer of needles fallen from the pines. In this photograph, an older, now almost completely desiccated fruiting body is revealed next to the small, growing one.
Here you can take a better look at that dry mushroom.
Here you can see another tiny mushroom that I wasn't able to identify.
Here you can take a better, macro look at that little umbrella, and on the following photograph ...
... you can admire a small group of these lovely mushrooms.
While still there, under the pines, I photographed also this Mycena Seynesii mushroom ...
... that grew on a pine cone.
And that's it. After this shot, I walked back home to prepare this post. As always here on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.