Too hot for mushrooms?

Friday, 7th of July 2023 [77]

What did I find in the forest today? I wanna say mushrooms. I really do! Those tiny creatures that love to hide on the forest floor were a sole purpose of my walk to the forest today. Ok, I was also after some inner peace. A nice walk in the forest always delivers plenty of the latter.

Some weeks ago my friend sent me these pictures to ask what mushrooms grow in her huge garden. I was excited to see some members of Boletus family so early in the season and that’s what I was hoping to find today.

The weather however has been very hot and dry here in June and with the sudden allergies I wasn’t too keen to walk in the forest. Had I gone to the forest right after she sent me these pictures maybe I’d be lucky to find a few of those.

Still, I was hopeful! I haven’t posted in #FungiFriday by @ewkaw for quite a while and even though we had a very hot summer this year, last week it has been raining a lot, so I was hoping some mushrooms have shown their heads.

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Arriving in the forest it welcomed me with a huge puddle. That was a hopeful sign!

For a moment I wondered if my selection of shoes was adequate for this, but I had nothing to worry about. After long weeks of heat, those few days of rain barely made any impact.

The rest of the forest was mainly dry and while the greenery at the eyesight and above was still lush and beautiful, I can’t say the same was true at the forest floor.

Usually green and plump mosses were dry and greyish today.

That’s never a good sign for the appearance of mushrooms. Their bodies are mainly made of water and clearly they didn’t have enough of it to grow.

Mosses still looked somewhat majestic, despite their dry condition ☺️

But hey, there are still some beautiful creatures in the forest even in the most dry weather conditions. These yellow cuties made me smile as soon as I saw them. I don’t know the name of those, but they remind me of the forest floor back in Poland. These were always growing abundantly in various parts of the forest.

Despite the lack of boletes, the forest didn’t disappoint. It’s just a beginning of July and the juicier types of mushrooms usually show up in aboundance towards the end of the summer.

I was however hoping for at least a few stray chanterelles. I remember picking those much earlier in the year, usually since May/June even. But the heatwave didn’t help. The usual place where I find them, on a mossy hill was looking pretty dry and there was not a sign of striking orange heads poking through this dry moss today.

I was already on my way out of the forest when I stumbled across a dry brunch with a few almost completely dry white mushrooms on it on the picture above.

I took a few captures of them while holding the stick in my hands. ‘Lepszy rydz niz nic’ says old Polish proverb. Meaning that something is better than nothing. That something in this proverb is a type of mushroom - a milkcup - which I haven’t found foday, but at least something 😉

Then a few steps further there were some more of mostly dry mushrooms.

Oh well, I guess I’ll have to wait a bit longer for some nice specimens to share with you guys. For now just dry bits and bobs and my sincere hello to this amazing community.

The plan was to at least grace you all with some other forest floor beauties to make it up for the lack of fungi, but my Ecency app is playing up today and doesn’t want to add anymore pictures, so I will leave those I took today for another post.

Happy Fungi Friday everyone!

Camera:	iPhone11
Photographer:	@fantagira