Autumn on the Allotment, Part One: The Mushroom Invasion

I had a nice surprise on Saturday.  If you remember from a previous post and video, after clearing away some of the jungle that encroaches on one corner of my plot, I inadvertently brought this curiosity to life, pictured right:

I'm still not entirely sure what it is, though consensus seems to be forming that it's a "chicken of the woods", which would be fine by me.  Excellent name for a mushroom.  Just the other night I worked a shift with an amateur mycologist/photographer, who confirmed the hypothesis.  So that's that.  But then, there's this:

When I returned to the plot on Saturday for the first time since the beginning of the week, I was astonished to come across this:

What's that?  That's a colony of mushrooms, that is.  No previous indication that there would be any such thing, and suddenly, there they were.   Let's take a closer look.

Closer...

Closer...

Hundred of them.  Wonderful.  Remarkable.  There's a beauty to mushrooms quite unlike any other beauty, and indeed that of plants - in fact, they're not plants: they're more closely related to animals, but belong in their own kingdom.  They don't photosythensise.  They don't really play by the rules at all.  It's no wonder the late Prophet Mckenna speculated they might be aliens.  

Some of them anyway.  Nothing magical about the ones that appeared on my allotment, nothing but common "ink caps" - edible, perhaps, but not with alcohol, though I haven't tested this theory.  I prefer not be poisoned, generally speaking.

Today is Tuesday.  When I nipped over this evening, the mushroom patch looked like this:

...and also like this:

The mighty fungus, the chicken of the woods, whatever it is, remains, but the mushroom sons have dispersed.  Mushrooms don't stick around.  I respect that.  Meanwhile...



Jonathan Bradshaw 
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The Mushroom Invasion (video)
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