Observaciones de creek

This is a teeny tiny mushroom, like maximum 4mm across probably smaller. I expected this to be a wee polypore because when viewed from above, that's what it looks like. Side attachment and ungulate, with a cocoa brown cap with white stripe around the margin. But no, it has white gills below. Could not take a spore print but from the photos it looks like there's a pinky brown or rusty tinge coming on inside the gills. Possibly this is in Crepidotus? A neat thing about the cap was that while it looked matt to the naked eye, it felt gel-like or slippery, and in these photos you can see that there's actually this clear gel layer that is inrolled, by way of a pileus thing.

These were several metres off the ground and out of my reach, on what may have been a half-alive wineberry tree. It has both Auricularia cornea and what I think is Conchomyces bursiformis fruiting on it right now, so the tree must be on the way out I guess. At first glance I thought these were Pleurotus, but they had a green-around-the-gills look to them, and later on in same patch of bush I saw this observation, a separate deceptive Conchomyces bursiformis.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/164784187
C. bursiformis among the few fungi fruiting at the moment over quite a large area, so I'm putting this obs down as C. bursiformis as well, on that basis.

Conchomyces bursiformis being particularly annoying in looking like a tasty Pleurotus from a distance, but then when you get closer the smell is wrong, the gills are the wrong colour (these were kinda grey-faint brown), the stipe/attachment is wrong, and there's a wallop of rubbery translucent pileus where a Pleurotus would just have flesh under the cap. Sad times in Naenae. Attractive mushrooms though, some consolation.

Just getting round to putting some old observations up. I would have said these little 4mm mushrooms were ruby bonnets but then the fuzzy caps confuse me. Anyway they had decurrent, red gills, white spores.

Just getting around to uploading these, from February 2023. They are at the base of a living silver birch, and about 10 metres away from https://inaturalist.nz/observations/87838556 from July 2021 which is on a living red oak (that oak is visible in background of 2nd photo). Both the trees are street trees and if this is the same organism, it has spread under a couple of grassy verges and two driveways to get between trees. (You can't see the driveways in the 2nd photo because of the angle, but they are there.) Or else, it has just spread by spores. Anyway, a Pleurotus of some kind, cf. australis, is eating my street, thanks.

This is a duplicate of an observation of the mushroom, just to record that an ant is drilling into a Descolea mushroom in the thermal zone. Maybe good source of protein in the mushroom itself but maybe going for insect larvae inside, unsure. Anyhoo, the mushroom observation is here: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/163604996

This observation purely to note the ant drilling into this Descolea under kānuka. I guess mushrooms a good source of protein in the thermal zone? But I also note there's what looks like a dead ant or its exoskeleton in amongst the frass on this cap, so not really sure what's going on here. Also the ants may be going into the mushroom in search of insect larvae to eat, rather than mushroom itself? Anyway there were several buttons around too and the ants quite active around those as well, but this mature cap was the only one where I noticed actually digging in.

Obseration only, made as a tourist, no collection made because not in permitted area.

A long-stemmed Geoglossum (no hairs) with a mycoparasite of some sort, or possibly just a mould or something, upon it. This stipe was snapped off but the head found not far away. Under redwoods. Fruitbody would have been about 10cm tall in total.

At Maungatautari mountain track, in soil under tree ferns. Firm brittle flesh, outer petals a rosy tan, inner puff mounds milky brown. One whole 'egg' part of this collection, and some of the 'eggshells' left over after the earthstars hatch. Photo 3 is an earthstar lying face down - I don't know how it got like that. Anyhoo, these were the big kind of earthstars, not the mini ones.

This was not a conspicuous Cordyceps, or similar parasite of insect larvae. The tiny white-dusted fruitbodies that stick out of the log are under 1cm tall, and skinny. They are not stiff or brittle, but flexible. Two fruitbodies were found on this log, although only one of them had recognisable larval remains in the cavity below it.

This completely mummified entity was some sort of wood-boring larva: it still has its red mouth chompers which you can see in one of these pics. Apart from that it is completely fungal now. I accidentally beheaded it while trying to dig out the grub but you can still get the gist from the reassembled parts.

The mummy was quite firm or tough-feeling, not soft like a real maggot.

Collected at Maungatautari 'over the mountain' track.

Did not smell like farts or radish or what have you, when crushed. Even though I was expecting it to! It had no particular odour.

My guess is Marasmiellus, which now seems to have become Collybiopsis.

Actually I have no clue what this is really.

Maungatautari, 'over the mountain' track.

A nice fungus, paint-splashy, that looks like a faint mauve bloom on fallen branches in native forest.

This has been plated on agar 7x to give some hope of getting a culture, so it could get an ID one day. It's with Manaaki Whenua.

While scraping off tiny bits for the agar, I noticed that what appears to be mottled coloration is caused by the fungus growing indiscriminately over sections of log with and without bark or mossy stuff. The fungus itself may be quite consistently coloured mauve, I think, but because it's see-through, you get these dark and light patches showing through from underneath.

Collected at Mangapapa Conservation Area.