Lane Cove's famous fungi

My bushwalking group did a great little walk the other day which incorporated a guided tour of the rare and endangered fungi species of the Lane Cove Bushland Park.

Our guide Ray used to be a neurologist. Now he's an enthusiastic expert mycologist, and he expertly pointed out, named, and explained about 20 or 30 different species, all in the space of a few hectares of this inner Sydney suburban park.

Some of them are endemic, in the true meaning of the word - ie they've not been found anywhere else but in this small locality. The little black one (below right) is so rare and endangered that it's not yet been named or scientifically described. The green one is green with a green pigment that's not chlorophyll. The big orange mass at the base of an angophora tree is a parasite that will kill the fully grown tree within two years. The small ones were often so small that we'd never have noticed them at all without our expert help.

And the ones that look like jellybeans are called jellybean fungi, and the ones that look like coral are called coral fungi.

We learnt a lot, and didn't we feel privileged to have been treated to this! (Mind you, I didn't learn quite enough to give you any of the latin names. Sorry about that!)