Mushrooms are the flowers of the Fungi kingdom.

I think they are beautiful.

I had to rush outside with my camera this afternoon and get these photos

before mean Mr. Flower mowed them down.

No worries, they will be back.

The part above ground is for reproduction, just like the flowers of plants.

I expect to see another lovely crop after the next good rain.

Some mushrooms like this oak conk do not look like mushrooms. This looks bread.

Most of these mushrooms have gills

and stalks with a club foot.

Some of them have pores under their caps instead of gills.

Like this blob-shaped, one with a yellow stalk.

Its cross-section has different layers.

These tiny groups look like bird’s nests. Rain washes the spores out to spread.

These two look like potatoes.

This one is gray like a stone.

Some caps are like funnels instead of parasols.

I love to find little buttons just emerging from their veils.

I enjoy finding mounds of mushrooms, too.

The red-capped ones are my favorite.

I like mushrooms so much that I make my own out of concrete.

This lizard uses this one for his lookout post.

FLOWER loves Fungi

 

 

I have shared part of this story before.

I am retelling it now because of the mama deer and twin fawns

that were photographed by my neighbor’s critter cam.

When I was a science teacher, I was required to take workshops and classes to renew my teaching license every five years.

One of the workshops that I took was called Project Wild.

It was full of activities to help students understand nature and ecology.

The teachers played some of the games to get familiar with them.

The game that I remember most was a survival game.

Each participant drew a card with the name of the animal they would play

along with the types and amounts of food it would require to survive.

I was a mama bear with twins. My list of requirements was long.

All the “resource” cards were tossed in the middle of our big circle outside on the lawn.

A clock was started and we all had to quickly forage for the right kinds and amounts of foods.

When the clock stopped. We all counted our cards.

The “winners” had gotten enough food and water to survive.

The “losers” died.

I LOST.

My bear family didn’t survive. I felt guilt and sorrow.

There were not enough resources and too much competition.

I wonder if all the winners remember that game as much as the losers do?

I had done my best and failed, not just for me, but for my twins, also.

That mama deer ate every daylily bud and bloom. She ate every hosta leaf in my yard.

They will all grow back next season, but those fawns needed food NOW to live.

Maybe if everyone played games like that, and lost, we would all have more empathy.

I have gladly sacrificed my flora for those two fauna.

FLOW

 

 

So far I have shared two of my ‘Top Three’ plants.

Here is number three, blooming while all others are wilting.

It is named Eucomis/ Pineapple lily.

I used to dig them up and haul them in for the winter.

I left this bunch out this year.

They look the happiest they have ever been.

I will still dig up a few to keep “in stock” just in case there is a really, cold wet winter.

The blooms are tiny flowers in rows along a central column.

Florets open from the bottom first. Each array of blooms if topped by a tuft of leaflets.

The effect as a whole makes the blooms resemble tall, skinny pineapples.

Easy care, late bloomer.

No wonder it is one of my ‘Top Three’.

I do have a smaller type of Eucomis  in pots, named  ‘Aloha’, which is not blooming yet.

FLOWER