Fungi on a dead branch
Adjacent to the blossoming Mexican plum tree you recently saw in a picture from February 6th were these fungi growing on a dead branch. Mycologist David Lewis says they’re probably in the genus Trametes.
© 2019 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
the green background makes it so good.
sedge808
February 17, 2019 at 5:56 PM
Agreed. You may have heard me say a zillion times that the background is as important to a photograph as the subject.
Steve Schwartzman
February 17, 2019 at 6:34 PM
agreed
sedge808
February 17, 2019 at 6:41 PM
What a colossal find! That’s a stunning image.
Littlesundog
February 17, 2019 at 7:07 PM
If not colossal in size (which it wasn’t), then happily in its impact on you.
Steve Schwartzman
February 17, 2019 at 8:45 PM
I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The structure reminds me of honeycomb, or a wasp nest. Looking at it, I might assume it was as dead as the limb it’s attached to. Alive or dead, its colors coordinate nicely with the wood.
shoreacres
February 17, 2019 at 9:02 PM
I don’t think I’d ever seen anything of the sort, either. Your likening it to a honeycomb is apt in terms of appearance, if not in the distinction between inert and alive. Arithmetical me wondered how many little depressions there are in the fungus but I had no desire to count them.
Steve Schwartzman
February 17, 2019 at 10:16 PM
Beautiful patterns in those fungi, Steve. It does look like a bit like honeycomb, or even reticulum.
Lavinia Ross
February 17, 2019 at 10:36 PM
Or perhaps also a faded piece of a reticule:
https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=reticule
Steve Schwartzman
February 18, 2019 at 6:14 AM
The fungi remind me of reef coral.
Gallivanta
February 18, 2019 at 2:25 AM
From a television documentary the other night we learned that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which lies so close to Cairns, is home to several thousand species of sponges.
Steve Schwartzman
February 18, 2019 at 6:21 AM
And even though I have been to Cairns many times I have yet to visit the Great Barrier Reef.
Gallivanta
February 19, 2019 at 4:48 AM
I’m sorry to hear the reef has proved a great barrier for you.
Steve Schwartzman
February 19, 2019 at 7:13 AM
Very odd looking. We get lichens, moss, and fungi on our trees here, because it is so wet. Some of our fungi is rubbery too. But nothing we have looks like this! Ours looks more like the the example shown in the article on Wikipedia. Hard and dry. Is this one hard and dry?
Lynda
February 18, 2019 at 8:52 AM
I think it’s dry and firm, but to tell you the truth, I never touched it. The reason I photographed it is that, like you, I’d never seen a fungus quite like this one.
Steve Schwartzman
February 18, 2019 at 8:59 AM
Too funny! If I had been there I would definitely have petted it to see if it was soft or stiff… and then hoped that it didn’t close up on my hand and trap me there. 😉
Lynda
February 18, 2019 at 3:19 PM
I do usually touch the things I photograph. Somehow I didn’t in this case, but certainly not for fear it would grab me. Greenbrier vines and agarita, on the other hand, have often latched onto me.
Steve Schwartzman
February 18, 2019 at 3:32 PM
Agarita! 🙀
Lynda
February 18, 2019 at 4:57 PM
[…] one and then another recent post showed things I photographed along the northern end of Spicewood Springs Rd. on […]
What I’d actually stopped to photograph | Portraits of Wildflowers
February 19, 2019 at 4:29 AM
AKA Polypores. This is the underside, I believe. The top might identify them as one of the turkey tails…Trametes versicolor, one of my favorites and quite common here in New England.
Steve Gingold
February 19, 2019 at 6:50 PM
The word polypore had come into my head after I saw all those “pores” but I didn’t trust myself enough to go with it, given how little I know about fungi: essentially nothing. You’re more advanced.
Steve Schwartzman
February 19, 2019 at 9:32 PM
I enjoy finding different mushrooms as well as wildflowers. I am no mycologist, but find them fascinating and so varied in their shapes and forms.
Steve Gingold
February 20, 2019 at 7:08 PM
Like you, I find their patterns and shapes intriguing, regardless of what they are scientifically.
Steve Schwartzman
February 21, 2019 at 7:16 AM
It is so cool to see the web of life in action.
melissabluefineart
February 28, 2019 at 8:05 AM
To see and where possible to document.
Steve Schwartzman
February 28, 2019 at 8:10 AM