Well. It’s a fungus called clavaria vermicularis or clavaria fragilis. Common names include things like fairy fingers, which is pleasantly evocative. But don’t you think it looks like pasta?

Before you conclude that I’m pasta-obsessed, you should know that the BBC once played a fine April Fool’s joke on the British public. They aired footage of the Swiss spaghetti harvest — see it for yourself on Youtube: the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest 1957.

Wikipedia’s spaghetti tree hoax page explains that:

The report was made more believable through its voiceover by respected broadcaster Richard Dimbleby. Pasta was not an everyday food in 1950s Britain, known mainly from tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce and considered by many to be an exotic delicacy.

At the time there were 7 million homes in Britain with television sets, out of a total of 15.8 million homes. An estimated 8 million people watched the programme on 1 April and hundreds phoned in the following day to question the authenticity of the story or ask for more information about spaghetti cultivation and how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC reportedly told them to place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best. [continue]

I love that advice. It’s too bad that people know so much about pasta now. If only it were 1957, we could sell Gabriola spaghetti plants to the gullible British public.

The first photo gives you an idea of what you’ll see as you meander past this stuff. Here’s what you might see if you pause to take a closer look:

Related link: Phlebia radiata – mushroomexpert.com

Related: @TEDMED: Catching up with Paul Stamets, mushroom innovator – ted.com.

This particular polypore is one I pass now and again. I love the way it looks when sparkled with raindrops. The spiderweb at the top is a new addition.

Remove the mushroom’s stem, place the cap on a piece of paper, and cover with a bowl or cup. Wait a few hours, or overnight; you should then have a spore print to look at. The colour of the spore print will help in narrowing down what sort of mushroom you’re looking at.

Then one day I spied a slug in one of those holes, munching away on the remains of a mushroom. Aha!

This year I’ve been wondering about toppled-over mushrooms. They’re uprooted, lying on their sides, and just… left there. What’s up with that? I was about to ask you when I saw this:

I don’t know quite how a slug is able to dislodge and topple mushrooms, but there you go.

(The fringe is the remnant of a universal veil).

I saw this and immediately changed my mind about cakes with teeth. I’m still not going to decorate cakes (sugar, bleck!), but if I were a cake decorator, I’d now make cakes that would look like fungi. A layer cake would look just like this.

I think this fungus is Phaeolus schweinitzii, by the way. Wikipedia notes that it’s also called velvet-top fungus, dyer’s polypore, Norway Chicken, or dyer’s mazegill.

(For more details on Phaeolus schweinitzii, see Mushroom Expert or Mykoweb.)

I think this is a slime mold, though it might turn out to be a more ordinary sort of fungus. They’re tiny at the moment — these balls were each about 5mm wide when I photographed them. (But isn’t magnification fun?)

The specimen you see here is about 7 cm tall.

This tree came down a while ago in the Gabriola woods. See where on the trunk the break occurred: just where the bracket fungus grew. (Thanks to the break, I can see how the white fungus has infiltrated the trunk.)

Did the fungus weaken the trunk there? Or did it find an already-weak spot, and choose to grow in that weakened wood? Maybe both. You’ll understand why I’m kept awake pondering things like this.

Today I noticed a Fungi Perfecti research update about this fungus: Turkey Tail mushrooms support immunity of breast cancer patients in NIH-funded clinical study. (.pdf) Fascinating.

Related link: Medicinal Mushrooms. (It’s not the kind of mushroom you’d want to eat with your dinner. But it may be the strongest kind to help fight cancer. New research focuses on a powerful fungus.)

At this point I think they’re probably Plectania milleri.

Related: Trial field key to the species of SARCOSOMATACEAE in the Pacific Northwest.

Rather cool, isn’t it? I’ve seen lots of jelly fungi on Gabriola, but haven’t noticed any pink jellies before this.

If you happen to be walking back from the green antlers towards the cedar tree antlers, watch for these little pink blobs. I hope they’ll be bigger soon. And who knows? One of these days maybe I’ll even figure out what this particular jelly is called.

As soon as I read up on this fungus, I realized that it is the answer to one of the Gabriola forest mysteries that has been puzzling me for the last year or so. Solved! Can you guess which mystery? It’s this one:

Teal-coloured wood in Gabriola’s forest.

According to Tom Volk, the fungi is Chlorociboria aeruginascens, the green stain fungus. This fungus produces the cup fungi my friend photographed, AND the stained wood I’ve been puzzling about.

Heh. I like it when answers show up.

I love these things, and have several in my windowboxes, on little branches that I’ve brought home from the forest. (Well, said a friend, hearing about this. I guess everybody needs a hobby.)

Paul Kroeger first documented the world’s deadliest mushroom a short walk from his home on East 40th Avenue in Vancouver….Kroeger said death cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides) have entered Canada through the roots of non-native trees. They showed up in Mission in 1997 and are now also found on southern Vancouver Island….In Europe, deaths caps are reportedly responsible for almost 90 per cent of deaths due to mushroom poisonings….Anyone who eats one can expect stomach pains, vomiting and diarrhea. Symptoms typically subside for two or three days before returning, along with jaundice. Without treatment, coma and death can occur due to liver failure and possibly also kidney failure.

Source: yahoo.com. [Update: The article quoted above is no longer available on Yahoo's website.]

Sounds nasty. Anyone know where on southern Vancouver Island? Not Gabriola, I hope?

I think of that woman in October, when zillions of mushrooms appear in the Gabriola woods. Some, like this one, look for all the world like miniature parasols. Would Gabriola’s Lady Parasol carry a parasol if it were a bigger version of this mushroom? I like to think that she would.

So first it looked like this, and then the fungus got way out of hand, and then there was more fungus visible than tree. And then?

Then a slug came along and ate all of the fungus. Cleaned off the whole tree! Those Gabriola slugs are a piggy lot.

This one’s all shiny because it’s soaked. It’s been raining all day in the forest, and the dog does think I’m insane when I pause in the rain to take photos.

Ray shows some of the mushrooms we’ve got on Gabriola — make special note of the poisonous fly agaric and panther agaric mushrooms. These are both amanitas, and they both grow on Gabriola. I like the way Ray shows how to identify the fly agaric (starting at about 2:09 in the video): get the whole mushroom, check gills, spores, stem, base, ring etc. (He doesn’t mention that a young fly agaric looks a bit different from the specimen he’s showing, but oh well.)

Related blog post: panther agaric on Gabriola