Mushroom Monday - Desert Edition

Here are some dried out dusty fungi finds for this #mushroommonday

Here is an ancient fossilized mushroom ready for a giant prehistoric pizza.

Just kidding this is just a rock formation in Echo Canyon in the Chiricahua Mountains of Southern Arizona. There is fungi all over these rocks though...

Technically these rocks are covered in lichens. Lichens are neither fungi or algae, they are a symbiotic combination of both.

There are a number of different species of lichens growing on these dry desert rock formations. The symbiosis is that the fungi provides a climate controlled substrate for the algae to grow on. The fungi absorbs frost water that feeds the algae and the algae then feeds the fungi. Eventually the rocks will completely be covered (at least in the shady areas) by the lichens.

Here is a surprising reishi find next to one of the few lakes in Southern Arizona. The desert generally is not hospitable to fungi as it is way to dry. The lake however has kept this reishi alive on a dead tree that fell into the water.

Here is an unidentified polypore growing out of a stump with a thorn plant growing through it. Perhaps the stump is still getting water somehow that makes the dead wood wet enough for fungi to grow.

Up in the mountains I was able to find a familiar fungi that I usually see all over the place in Illinois. This is Stereum hirsutum aka false turkeytail. High up in the mountains it snows in the winter and I suspect this fungi and moss are feeding off melted snow on a dead tree.

Here is another strange unidentified polypore growing on the side of a cottonwood tree. These trees are fed by an artesian well and they grow large and fast then die quickly. I suspect right after the tree died these mushrooms took over.

I didn't plan on finding any fungi in Arizona because it is a desert but fortunately there were some hanging around in rare areas. That's all for now happy #mushroommonday :-)