Botany Photo of the Day will have brief written entries on weekends, holidays and my vacations from April through September. – Daniel
Ken Beath, aka kjbeath@Flickr is the person to thank for today's photograph (original via the BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Do visit Ken's Australia photo galleries if you've the time! Thanks, Ken.
Measuring approximately 1cm across, pixie's parasol is a diminutive mushroom of fallen wood substrates in moist forests of Australia, New Zealand and Chile. The Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne had a fungus of the month site for two and a half years, and Mycena interrupta was featured. Special mention was made of the Gondwanan distribution pattern.
Pixie's Parasol - fantastic! So aptly named, I can almost see the pixies scuttling for cover! Puts me in mind of Arthur Rackham illustrations.
Inspirational for me as I am attending a workshop at Cambridge University soon painting fungi, thanks Ken,does anyone know if there are other colours in this species?
Much as I like fungi, I do not think they belong here as they are not plants - in fact, they are more closely related to the animals!
pixie parasol delightful
i found my fairyopolis calendar and
cicely m barker wrote many books about
pixies and how they dwell in the trees
her illustrions are so good quite true
to nature she was english the books are
very good thank you all once again
you do lead me on daniel with all the links
I would love to see a list, with binomials, of all the plants and fungi that include 'pixie', 'fairy', 'dryad' etc. in their common names. (not horticultural variety names). If anyone has or knows of such, even a partial list, please post a link here or email, attention to George at:
http://www.wisdomoftheherbsschool.com/contact.html
Thanks!
Cool image.
I like photographing fungi when I go hiking.
Good selection for the photo of the day. One person who commented, may have missed that this is the "Botany" photo of the day, not "Plant" photo of the day.
Seems that I have not found a mushroom with blue yet, just purple.
Wonderful image! They may not be plants, but fungi (as well as algae and lichens) are traditionally (and still) included in the study of botany.
Hmm. From my high-school biology days long ago, I learned that Euglena presents the only plant/animal conundrum. I'd never think of fungi or liverworts or lichen as anything but plants.
Mycena are ok, but my fairy parasol money is on Marasmiellus candidus.
See, eg., http://www.mykoweb.com/CAF/species/Marasmiellus_candidus.html
http://www.fungoceva.it/tav_Marasmiellus_candidus.htm
("senza valore" is a little harsh!)
Mycena leiana is a very pretty native species (as in native to Ohio the US). I think the discussion of plant/fungi phylogeny may be better suited for another forum. Fungi and plants are intrinsicly linked. Plants would not be what they are if it were not for fungi (e.g. EMF/AM fungi). Great picture, nice to see something different now and again!
OK, I accept that botany includes the study of Fungi, but WHY? It would be more logical to include fungi in Zoology, since the relationship is much closer!
But is it edible? The european edible, "Blue Bits", is quite blue.
Another delight for me to see today. What a beautiful blue colour.
Thank you, Margaret-Rae
Its interesting how history dictates the classification schemes of the taxa we know today. Fungi falling under the umbrella of botany and having the -aceae suffix on the family names instead of -idae or their own unique identifier is just one of those interesting mishaps. So even though we now realize they are saprotrophic, not autotrophic (or one of the many other differences between fungi and plants) we are to a great degree bound by linneus and co. Another fantastic example of the same phenomenon would be slime-molds being studied by mycologists, even though they are amoebozoa, not eumycota. But thats certainly an excellent thing to point out. You'd never think it just by looking at them. Its amazing how wrong we can be.
I love pics of fungi..so ethereal they can be. Thanks to Andrea also, for the links. Lovely!