this is my contribution to #FungiFriday by @ewkaw
driftwood logs from Lågen river often wash up on the beach at Lillevik. there's one particularly long log that has been there for a few years that has
Gloeophyllum sepiarium conifer mazegills or rusty gilled polypores growing all over it
to get to the beach one must walk through a forest. since there is no road access the beach is let pretty much in it's natural state. once in a while local residents pick up any trash and move some of the driftwood off the sand and into the edge of the forest but other than that the beach is as nature forms it.
i visit both the beach and the forest several times a year in different seasons and it is nice to experience the changes from season to season and through the years.
now about this log, it's the only one on the beach with mazegills along the entire length. i have posted about the log a couple of times before in previous years but the fruiting bodies of the mazegill only last a year. so though the log is the same the fruiting bodies are different each year, even if they are growing in the same place on the log.
this year i found something i hadn't noticed before. not only do they grow from the log, they also grow from other older fruiting bodies. it leaves me wondering if perhaps some of the fungi i see are actually from last year. the gills are certainly aged. by the way though theses are classified as polypores, they don't have pores, they have gills. just to keep things interesting i suppose.
anyway, according to the sources i have read they shouldn't last through the winter. here a couple of late bloomers sprout just as winter is approaching.
but here the upper ones are much older and they are clearly growing from another mazegill and not the log. their gills are in far better condition than the older one in the previous shot.
the next time i come i'll be looking for more like these growing from each other
that's it for now from the beach but i'll be back
)
