Saturday, June 11, 2011

Mushrooms

My 3 day trek in the rain forests of Costa Rica - let me discover the rich flora and fauna of the place. We witnessed those mythical sort of creatures that were believed to be only an artist's impression; until you saw them live. For eg. the Morphus - the fairy tale butterfly; which seemed to be straight out of a fantasy land. Or the winged insect which had helicopter like rotor blades - if you remember the movie Avatar; there are some flying creatures of that sort.

The glowing plants in Avatar? Yeah! We saw glowing mushrooms during our trek. Mushrooms - variety of them, different hues and textures. I wanted to dedicate one entire post on those mushrooms. So long, here they are - For your eyes only :-)

I forgot many of the names. But can still remember their texture. This one was like a slice of cheese :)


Woody, observe the rings on them, seems to be telling their age!!


A delicate brown and white border. Fashionable mushroom :)


The beauty of them all. This reddish orange cup shaped one is called Cocaina.


Another version of Cocaina - smaller and hairy.


Flowery


Mounds of them - surviving on dead wood.


Bunch of cocainas :) This branch was lying on the ground, William planted it upright while Gautam clicked this picture.


This one looked like stale bread.


Chocolates?


Feels like skin peeling out - It was rubbery to touch.


Wormy fungus!


I forgot its name.


This is the glowing mushroom. We picked few to take back to our camping area.


Close resemblance to the button mushroom.


Eeewww....


22 comments:

  1. No wonder u had fun exploring all these lil things....Cocaina's sucha beautiful mushroom...n d chocolate ones...look yummmy...!!

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  2. Not a fan of Mushrooms! But informative indeed. :)

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  3. Wow, So many varieties, some are very appealing ,the orange cup and brown with white border.
    Loved this post:)

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  4. I don't think I have seen so many varieties of mushrooms in our forests. Great pics, B!

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  5. Never heard of glowing mushrooms and never seen so many varieties of them before.All your pictures are very nice .Thanks for this wonderful post.

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  6. ah!
    had goosebumps seeing those, thumps down to them !!
    But nice pictures. :)

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  7. Awesome clicks..I have seen them though, but it's a treat seeing them again! I love edible mushrooms!

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  8. wow so many types of mushrooms :d though my fav is still the ones that are edible :D
    Cocaina looks beautiful!!!!

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  9. F first time I see so many types of Mushrooms. Like your statement "for your eyes only". Can't eat over th net

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  10. Jaunty amina,

    :-) Oh it was more than fun! It was once in a life experience to be treasured for ever.
    Cocaina was gorgeous among the lots. :-) I am not sure if they were all edible, but they did look delicious.

    Juxtaposition,

    :-D Thanks

    chitra,

    Yup chitra. I had not seen that many varieties earlier! Thank you.

    Balan,

    Me too! Thanks Balan.

    AS,

    Thanks dear.

    kavita,

    Glowing mushrooms were a feast. Didnt know it existed; thought it was just an imagination in movies until we saw them. Thank you.

    Anurag,

    They were all lovely, except for few.

    Neha,

    Thank you. I dont know if any of them were edible.

    Rajlakshmi,

    Yup! :) Thanks.

    A,

    Yeah it was the same with me, never seen those many in my life at one area. Haha, dont know if they were edible A :)

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  11. I love mushrooms and have eaten button, shitaki, oyster and portobelo. Are all these varieties edible? They make amazing pictures certainly.

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  12. Lovely mushrooms. I once photographed a mushroom in the forest near Thekkady and I was told it was called"Bridal Mushroom". It was like a dressed up pumpkin. Tried to retrieve the photo locked up somewhere in the computer but could not.

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  13. The wormy one was ewww too. Btw, I wanna eat mushroom curry now.

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  14. If I had not seen the title, I would have assumed the first few pics as flowers... :):)

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  15. Must have been a very adventurist trip.
    Mushrooms look so good. A large variety, isnt it?

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  16. I loved orange cup shaped Cocaina , they all are non edible right ??

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  17. Rachna,

    I dont think these were all edible.
    But they did look beautiful.

    anil,

    Yeah they were lovely. I just googled how a bridal mushroom looked. Its beautiful.
    Hope you get the picture.

    Nethra,

    :-) Haha

    Ramya,

    :-) Yup! They are so lovely, isnt it?

    Chowla sir,

    Yes it was. It was sure a treat to see so many variety of them.

    neha,

    Yeah Cocaina is my favorite as well. Yeah they are all not edible.

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  18. I am reading a book which talked about different types of Mushrooms (Now, the book isn't as boring as I just made it sound). And you gave visualization to those words. Thanks.

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  19. Zeba,

    :-) Thank you. I hope the book has pretty good pictures, it would sure be interesting then :)

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  20. Glad to read through your Tag..otherwise I would've missed this. Amazing to see their textures, colors and shapes! Never knew there were so many different types of mushrooms!

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  21. Vaish, These are just handful.. There are many variants of them

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I'd love to know what you thought :-) Please shoot!