More mushrooms, and Rita Cheryl

Y'all know me, if it's unusual, I want to share it.  I shared magic mushrooms two and a half years ago (one of those looked like a satellite dish!), and I found some last summer but forgot to share here.  NOW...now, or actually yesterday, I found these unusual mushrooms on a tree at Elder-Snider Cemetery (this one is west of my hometown about five miles).  They're leathery to the touch and look a little like the wood they're growing from.  This first one is growing straight out of the tree...

...and these two are growing from a subterranean root.

As was the case last summer, Rita Cheryl had to get a closer look.

I think the mushroom would've been strong enuff for her to sit on, but I didn't want to risk it.

By sheer, dumb luck I was able to find the pictures I forgot to share.  These were taken back on September 17th.  Stokelan Drive is divided in front of the high school, and along the division there are trees.  This mushroom was growing out of a large stump.  Note another, older mushroom beside it.

The mushroom was a very large one, about the size of my fist.  Of course Rita Cheryl wanted to get a closer look.  Notice that it was only September 17th, and yet I already had her in her Halloween dress.  She proceeded to wear the dress through the entirety of October.

Tree stumps are wonderful settings for dolly pics, and I had hoped to return to this stump for future images.  Alas, it was not to be; a little over a week later I drove by and saw naught but a bare patch of dirt.  My stump had been pulled up, mushrooms and all.  Sad face.

I'm no mycocologist, so I never identified the white mushroom growing out of the tree stump, nor did I identify the mushrooms I found in 2020.  As for the brown shelf mushroom, online sources suggest that it's a species called Ganoderma applanatum, though I have my doubts because...well, because I don't know Bo Diddley from Bing Crosby about mushrooms!  If I'm right, the mushroom is not edible, but can be used for medicinal purposes.  Hmmm, inedible but medicinal...who'd have thunk?  Either way the presence of those mushrooms do not bode well for the tree.  Fungi tend to like dead stuff, and that suggests to me that at least part of that tree is either sick or already dead even though it has leaves growing.  

St. Patrick's Day post is in the works, so stay tuned!

Beware the Ides of March,
RagingMoon1987