A girl with windblown hair – perhaps. Funny how the imagination sees things at times. Her hairstyle will not last for long; she is a glistening inkcap, and is self-dissolving. Inkcaps turn themselves into inky soup that allows the spores to drip away.
While inkcaps dissolve, waxcaps dazzle. They are often called the orchids of the fungi world because of their glamorous colours. They also conservation waymarkers; it can take eighty years for them to recolonize a site after disturbance. Fields with high waxcap diversity are old by definition, and precious.
Golden waxcaps sprinkle gold dust in the mosses.
Diamonds and rubies may follow – many other waxcap species dwell under that field, each a different and improbable colour. I will keep walking and watching.
Around birch trees, the theme is red and white.
Fly agarics do not look quite real.
Sadly, this one had been knocked over by someone. But even in its severed state, a mature fungus will continue to drop spores; they are only the fruiting bodies of the mycelium which is hidden in the soil. I left it there to continue its work.
A Walk with Wildlife 
wonderful –
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Adele, very interesting. I first saw the top image on Twitter, and was wondering what it was. The head of hair did cross my mind! There always seems to be an interest in Fungi! I wonder how they went about telling which ones they could eat and which ones they couldn’t. Trial and error! Oh, look at Joe rolling on the ground with agony. We’d better not eat that one!
Happy Thanksgiving to you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL, I hope not but there probably was a bit of that involved! I seem to have some vague memory of reading that some culture somewhere used to look at what bears ate to get an idea of what was safe. I did ask someone from Russia about fungi, and she said that the knowledge of what is safe comes from picking them in childhood. Sounded like they had fungi forays at school – it’s a big cultural thing there!
Though I don’t eat wild fungi (except field mushrooms, sometimes). I prefer to just be amazed by their impossibly amazing weirdness 🙂
LikeLike
Beautiful images, Adele! I really like the Fly Agaric. They are the traditional fairytale toadstool 🙂
LikeLike
Yes, fly agarics definitely look like they’ve escaped from a fairytale 🙂
LikeLike
Nice selection, Adele. …
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! It’s shaping up to be a good autumn for fungi.
LikeLike