Heavy (though quite sporadic) rains have brought a veritable plethora of mushrooms this summer. Below is a taste – the whole set of them is over on the Natural History of Raleigh Photos.
These twin babies, found in Cedar Hills Park, might get much bigger. Check out the grapefruit sized monster below, which was part of a faerie ring at my school, The Fletcher Academy.
North Carolina’s Piedmont and Coastal Plain boasts over fifty species of mushrooms, according to the Duke Mycology page. I would not begin to identify positively any of these, but they are fun to examine and track as they release their spores and decay.
The shelf or turkey-tail mushrooms above are also from Cedar Hills Park, contiguous with the TFA campus and often visited by “Mr. DJ” and his students. Below is an ancient, algae encrusted shelf mushroom from the other end of my life’s spectrum – the parking lot at Sadlacks!
The faeries must have had a wild time in THIS circle. Found in the Capitol Square in downtown Raleigh. A reminder: mushrooms form these circles because the parent organism, consisting of thousands of intertwined undergound threads, has a central core and radiates outward in all directions. The mushrooms we see are the spore-producing “fruits” of that organism.
raleighnaturalist
The Raleigh Naturalist 
Great post John! I’ve been admiring mushrooms that have popped up since our deluge this week. As you know, mycelia is an important part of a healthy and diverse eco-system.
Comment by David Spain — October 2, 2010 @ 8:47 pm