Mushroom Monday - SOME SMALL AND MINUSCULE MUSHROOMS FROM THE INLAND WOODS

I drove about sixty kilometers north of my hometown to get the photographs for today's post.

The day was nice and sunny. A great and comfortable day for humans on weekend hikes and picnics, but not so much for mushrooms.

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I found only a handful of small ones ...

... on my walk through the woods.

This is the Psathyrella corrugis. It's a very common small mushroom in the woods. Isn't toxic, but because of the watery flesh with not much flavor is considered inedible.

These mushrooms grew in a place covered with two types of fallen leaves. The broad leaves from the deciduous trees, and needles from the conifers.

Not far from the Psathyrella corrugis mushrooms ...

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... I came across two cones fallen from the pine trees. Probably you already noticed that one of these cones is covered with a greenish layer ... of something. It looked like a mold or some other fungal phenomenon ...

... so I mounted the macro lens and got closer.

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A look through the macro lens revealed a lichen. Being a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of various fungi species in a mutualistic relationship, the lichen definitively deserves a place in this post.

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After an hour of aimless, more or less spiral or circular rambling around the forest, during which I didn't find any mushroom, only these colorful red leaves still attached to the plant ...

... I finally found another fungus.

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I wasn't able to identify this solitary mushroom that looked like a helmet, or like it's wearing the helmet.

Here you can take a look at the gills. Not far from this mushroom, a step or two further ...

... I came across a lovely, colorful caterpillar.

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This is the larva of the Acronicta rumicis moth.

After approximately another hour of walking and sniffing around, I found some really minuscule mushrooms, well hidden in the leaf litter.

I found them in a dark, humid place when I removed the fallen leaves. Since the light was low there, I used the flash for the first two photographs.

But the translucent mushrooms looked much better in the subdued natural light ...

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... so I decided to put the camera on the ground, set the timer, and take a couple of long exposure shots. They look like little ghosts or woodland jellyfish when photographed that way.

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Some minutes later, while walking towards the sunnier part of the forest, I photographed the beautiful, feather-like foliage of the Robinia pseudoacacia tree.

The next stop was under the tall pines, where I found this Strobilurus trullisatus mushroom.

Here you can take a good look at the gills and in the following photograph ...

... you can see a minuscule springtail hanging from a gill.

Not far from there I found a Psathyrella longipes mushroom ...

... in a strange, horizontal position.

I passed by this unusual scene ...

... and soon found a pair of Psathyrella corrugis mushrooms.

Some minutes later I was back in my car, ready to drive back home, so the post ends here, with these lovely, small mushrooms.

As always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.