Friday Fabulous Fungus - Oyster mushroom

It's been a wet, cool fall, a great season for fungi, and this is just the right time of year to spot oyster mushrooms, Pleurotus ostreatus. And you urban dwellers don't need to miss out, a walk around almost any well-treed neighborhood should result in success. Oyster mushrooms grow on wood and they are pretty easy to identify, especially given the season, and they are very tasty, very choice, highly recommended by many. The caps are asymmetrical and around here sort of a pale silvery gray color on top, white gills beneath, firmly fleshy. There were enough growing on the side of just this one maple tree to feed a lot of people. 

Friday Fabulous Fungus

TPP has been wanting to use the FFFungus for some time, but no appropriate "critters" presented themselves.  Since fall field work in under way and fall is a great time for fungi, except for how dry it's been, it was only a matter of time.  This is quite a handsome, although not large, example, the "apricot jelly fungus" (Phlogiotis helvelloides).  Now please understand; these are a jelly fungus whose color is apricot, not a fungus named after apricot jelly, although it might work just as well that way.  The fruiting bodies generally appear out of cracks in dead branches usually following a rain and what with their color they are quite conspicuous in spite of their smallish size (~1 cm).  The spatulate shape is pretty typical.  Found these two weeks ago but now they've disappeared until the next rainfall rehydrates them.