Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom.

November 16, 2016 11:37 PM

Most people consider mushrooms to be the small, ugly cousins of the plant kingdom, but theirs is a surprisingly beautiful and wonderful world waiting to be explored. Steve Axford shoots mushrooms from around the globe in addition to the ones found in his native Australia. Martin Pfister lights them from behind with tiny LEDs. Vyacheslav Mishchenko shoots mushrooms along with various creatures. And time-lapse photography shows the eerie power of the fruiting bodies bursting through the soil.
posted by Johnny Wallflower (19 comments total)

You will never ever hear me call mushrooms ugly. I love mushrooms. I love them to eat, I think they're cute and cool and amazingly interesting... they're like... I don't know, can a plant be your patronus? My mom used to call me mushroom, because I have a sun allergy, but I also dislike cold weather, so the result is that I'd always want to play outside on warm, rainy days.

This post makes me very happy.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 2:04 AM on November 17, 2016 [10 favorites]

Martin Pfister lights them from behind with tiny LEDs.

Seems like a lot of work when you can get them off ebay for a dollar. Or if you don't have a dollar, you can watch Big Clive take them apart.
posted by effbot at 2:29 AM on November 17, 2016

Also, mushrooms aren't in the plant kingdom (as this recent xkcd mentioned) - here's a phylogenetic tree with some model organisms.
posted by kersplunk at 2:51 AM on November 17, 2016 [5 favorites]

Speaking of trees,..before there were any, giant fungi grew on the land.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:17 AM on November 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

That's nothing. The largest living organism on the planet is a fungus. It's over two miles across.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:51 AM on November 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Woo-hoo, another mushroom thread!
posted by Melismata at 5:24 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

YES I LOVE THIS THANK YOU.

#172 Common Earthball

Same.
posted by FirstMateKate at 6:37 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's just a shame that kids today don't even know what a portobello is.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:05 AM on November 17, 2016 [4 favorites]

This one makes a very nice desktop wallpaper...
posted by jim in austin at 8:02 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

Gorgeous! Thanks for this post!
posted by WalkerWestridge at 10:51 AM on November 17, 2016

This one makes a very nice desktop wallpaper...
posted by jim in austin at 11:02 AM on November 17 [1 favorite +] [!]

I now have this one as my phone wallpaper. Its got great fall colors
posted by FirstMateKate at 11:03 AM on November 17, 2016

It's just gallinacci ("chicken claw" ≠ chanterelles) and trombe di morto ("death trumpet" ≠ horn of plenty) season here in central Italy - what delightful walks through the woods this weekend! (Lots of hedgehog mushrooms, too!). A most delicious post!
posted by progosk at 12:42 PM on November 17, 2016

man i frickin love finding mushrooms and looking at them and eating them. I'm not super creative with the eating thereof but I do love seeing them in the wild.

This year I noticed a few trees with branches sawed off in a park. Out of the tip of where each branch would have been.... was a big dang mushroom! It looked like a mushroom tree.

Also, I discovered Inky Caps aka Lawyers Wig mushrooms which grow like CRAZY in my apartment complex. I only discovered that some folks eat them after they had all disappeared last week, though, which is too bad.
posted by rebent at 5:58 PM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

My business partner has beautiful Amanita muscaria coming up all over her place. The various animals all seem to know better than to mess with those guys.
posted by jamjam at 9:20 PM on November 17, 2016

rebent: inky caps are pretty unmistakeable, and absolutely delicious - "edible in their early stages" means at any point until their caps start turning into ink - obvs. In culinary terms I consider them close cousins to parasols (which are a little trickier to positively identify).
posted by progosk at 11:36 PM on November 17, 2016

There is/was a reliable patch of shaggy manes at Apple headquarters, in the central courtyard next to the door to Infinite Loop 2.

I never ate one because I didn't know what may have been sprayed on the landscaping. You might want to exercise similar caution regarding the mushrooms around your apartment.
posted by ryanrs at 6:20 AM on November 18, 2016

Please post your pictures of your mushrooms. I like them better than cat pictures.

I like this one by my work.
posted by Dr. Curare at 9:55 PM on November 18, 2016

jamjam , I see nibbled A muscaria often, I think the squirrels eat them, but I am not sure.
posted by Dr. Curare at 10:09 PM on November 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Please post your pictures of your mushrooms.

- Amanita rubescens (?)
- Hygrocybe virginea
- Tremella mesenterica
- Hygrocybe conica (or Hygrophorus puniceus?).

(Oh, and: the edible ones I mentioned above.)
posted by progosk at 1:53 AM on November 20, 2016