Fungusumungus

It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Ontario and the weather is unseasonably mild.  We decided to make the most of the sunny afternoon and take a walk along one of our favourite trails in our area - the Tip to Tip trail in Burritts Rapids.



 

It's a beautiful path that climbs gently up a spit of land between the Rideau River and Rideau canal.

What a perfect day!  The geese were honking and the trees are glorious - not quite so red this year I fancy, but bedecked in glorious shades of gold and orange.



 

This one is one of my favourites - leaves long gone but it's oozing with personality.

I wish I were a gatherer, I wish I knew what to pick that is edible but I don't.  I suggested we look for fungi and see what we could find.  Not to eat of course, no, no!  Just to take pictures!  I was actually surprised at just how many different kinds we found.

There were tiny ones clinging to branches -



 

And drifts of others looking like a flock of moths.

[caption id="attachment_798" align="alignnone" width="480"] Turkey Tail fungus - thanks Jane :D[/caption]

 

Dead and dying trees are great places to look, this tree had a huge hole on one side - I can't help thinking someone must find that rather cozy.



On the other side look what we found!



 

They look like fairy mushrooms growing in pairs up the trunk!



 

 



 

Another tree was sprouting these -



 



 

If anyone knows their fungi I'd love it if you emailed me to let me know what these all are :)



 

I read something about mycelium once - the root system of fungi and mushrooms - I have the feeling if we had x-ray vision and could see through the forest we would be amazed at the network that runs everywhere bringing these otherworldly growths to life.



 

It will probably be Spring before we get to look again as over the next few weeks we'll see temperatures fall away and that will mean that the snow is not far behind.

The colours on this walk were so beautiful and I'll share them in my next post ;)