Fungi Hunt – Bola Creek, Royal National Park – 7 May 2014

Digi Dave and myself headed down to Bola Creek for an afternoon of fungi hunting. Compared to our previous visit there was much less out. No logs covered with fungi this time.

We headed down Lady Carrington Drive and then on the track that goes upstream along Bola Creek. We crossed the creek on the first crossing and then continued along the track through the beautiful rainforest.

We did spot a few small flame fungi out – once we found one or two, we suddenly seemed to spot a lot more. A lot of it seemed to be well past its prime. A couple of bright red hygrocybes also were easy to spot.

So we continued upstream to the second crossing – where on the last trip there had been some good patches of coral fungi out. There were some small coral fungi growing. As it often turns out when you are looking for fungi – once you spot one, while you are setting up the camera, you happen to notice a few more nearby, and then even more. This was certainly the case here.

Next, we slowly made our way back downstream along the track, looking very carefully this time. Lots of fungi were out and we could have spent more time finding even more. A lot of what we found was small colourful coral fungi.

One of the interesting things that we saw, was a slime mould (so not a fungi) on the end of a log. It was in its sporangia phase – and look very strange indeed.

Trichia verrucosa – a slime mould

I also took out a small sample of a very common fungus – the so called “Ghost Fungus” (Omphalotus nidiformus). It is one that is bioluminescent – it glows in the dark. I looked at it home at night – and sure enough it did give off a faint glow. The glow was very easy to photograph.

More photographs are online on my website here.