On my way back from Ferndale Park, I decided to stop off at Sydney Park and see if any new stinkhorns had appeared after the recent big fall of rain. I had visited the park a few weeks earlier and found an amazing number of stinkhorns in some of the new garden beds. These beds had fresh wood chips – and for a year or two, leech out nutrients favoured by certain fungi like stinkhorns. My previous visit had been a few days after a big fall of rain, and a lot of the stinkhorns I saw there were well past their best. This time, the rain had been the night before, so I was hopeful more would have popped up.
I did find a lot of stinkhorns, but a lot of them were still in pretty poor condition. I now think that it’s due, not them drying out, but rather due to too much rain falling and water logging them.The stinkhorns were of two species.
Here are some –
Lysurus mokusin
Pseudocolus fusiformis
Lysurus mokusin
In the photos above and below, you can see a lot of fallen over stinkhorns, and a lot of stinkhorn “eggs” – the structures they emerge from.
Pseudocolus fusiformis
I was sitting down on a concrete wall, changing the memory card in my camera, when I looked down and spotted some Birds Nest Fungi. I think this is Nidula emodensis
Birds nest fungi also like wood chips.
Pseudocolus fusiformis
Coprinus comatus
It had been a worthwhile visit.