frosted fungi

this is my contribution to #FungiFriday by @ewkaw

Lillevik Beach is a great place to find driftwood. i have posted here in FungiFriday several times earlier featuring some of the fungi growing on the logs. there is one log that is always particularly interesting with lots of wonderfully shaped rusty gilled polypore Gloeophyllum sepiarium.

each time i visit the beach i check out this log and surprisingly the fungi are always different. i was there a couple of days ago and sure enough there was something i hadn't observed here before- frosted fungi

it has been very damp here for a week now and while it was actually quite a lot colder in November, we are still getting frosts on clear nights. i wasn't expecting much on the beach and indeed the only frost was at the edge of the forest where this log was.

even though the fruiting body of these bracket fungi only last a year they were still in good shape in early December

these polypores are easy to recognize because oddly enough they have gills instead of pores. as they grow on conifers, they are sometimes called conifer mazegills

they are a brown rot fungi, which means they break down the cellulose in the wood but not the lignin. over time the wood turns brown and shrinks and cracks into dry chunks that crumble easily but this log is still relatively solid

so i expect to see the fungi for some years yet

as these are among the most common fungi in the northerrn hemisphere, the species fills an important role in their ecosystems, breaking down old wood and making the nutrients available for new growth. while they are important to nature they are also well known for causing rot on lumber and wooden structures such as houses. so not everybody is equally pleased to find them.

but i'll be back in the spring
to see the changes on that special log

and of course the beach itself