05/27/2026
When people think about mushrooms, they usually imagine a toadstool, a mushroom with a stalk, a round cap, and gills underneath. Like the highly poisonous blusher amanita mushroom (Figure 1).
But mushrooms come in a variety of different shapes!
(Figure 2) Shelf fungi, like this turkey tail, have no stalks. They grow right out of the side of trees and rotting logs!
(Figure 3) Some mushrooms, like this coral fungus, have no caps at all! Instead they have multiple branching stalks like some species of coral.
(Figure 4) Strangest of all are the jelly fungi like this witch’s butter. On dry days they are shriveled brown bits stuck to tree branches, but when it rains, they swell up and become gooey like Jell-o.
Come for a walk at Pyramid Mountain or the Great Swamp OEC on a rainy day and check out our local fabulous fungal forms!
