Saturday, September 19, 2009

Bird's Nest & Other Mushrooms in Our Backyard

I've seen these bird's nest mushrooms before, but not in our backyard! They are so tiny...less than a quarter of an inch wide. I love how it looks like they have tiny eggs in the nests.

I was once again surprised when I downloaded my photos. I realized that these little mushrooms were bird's nests, too... but most of them are still "covered!" The "eggs" are actually puffball-like packets of spores called peridioles. The nests are "splash cups" and, are scattered when raindrops hit them. I found some information about these mushrooms at American Mushrooms.

I'm not good at identifying most mushrooms, but I thought I'd share these photos of mushrooms that were in our backyard this week.



3 comments:

Dana Maize said...

Love your nature blog! These bird's nest mushrooms are so neat. I've never seen them before. I once checked out a book on identifying mushrooms, certain that I could become an expert and know which ones were good to eat and which ones would kill me. I was so overwhelmed, I returned the book after a couple of days and decided it's best to just never eat ANY!

Rhonda said...

These are just the neatest mushrooms. I have never seen or heard of them. Thanks for sharing.

Robin said...

I've never seen any of those beautiful little mushrooms. I'm going to try to keep my eye out for them. Do you think they are exclusive to your area of the country?

Related Posts with Thumbnails