Chicken-of-the-woods

We passed a couple of trees last Sunday with a large yellow fungus that I'd never seen before. Apparently it's a species of fungi that grows on trees and is found in Europe and North America. Other names are crab-of-the-woods, sulphur shelf and, hence the title of this post: chicken-of-the-woods. In Dutch it's named  'zwavelzwam'.

The fungus is described as "fruit bodies that grow as striking golden-yellow shelf-like structures on tree trunks and branches. Unlike many fungi growing on trees, it is edible when young''. 
Hmm, to be honest I have no desire in taking a bite.. how about you?  :)

It happens occasionally however that it causes brown cubical rot in the heartwood of trees. (info from Wikipedia)

Mushrooms

More signs of Autumn.

Both photos were taken in the Loenermark nature area, near Apeldoorn.

For those who celebrate Halloween: enjoy! I'm linking to All Seasons.

More mushrooms

We found -and photographed- so many mushrooms the past week! They came in all kinds of shapes, sizes, colours; alone or grouped together. Apparently the conditions for them this Autumn are good. So, more to follow!

Garden mushrooms

Aren´t they sweet!? They reappear in the back of our our garden each Autumn and grow on wood chips..

No sight of little elfs dancing around though... I guess they were camera shy ;)

Mushrooms

We spotted quite some mushrooms yesterday during our hike in the Dwingelderveld National Park..

...Autumn must be around the corner, what do you think? We are enjoying lovely late-Summer weather here though. Let's hope it will last a bit :)

Early mushroom

 We were very surprised yesterday to spot a large mushroom in the grass along a canal near Zuidlaren. The season for mushrooms here is Autumn, so around October/November. This was the only one we saw though.

Apparently the ground here and humidity were good enough for it to grow. Nature doesn't check a calender first haha.

I'm linking to All Seasons.

Red and white

During our hike yesterday we spotted some of these fly amanitas ('vliegenzwam' in Dutch). They are quite common in the Netherlands, but their numbers depend on the weather conditions. Some years they can be spotted everywhere and other years there only seem to be a few.
Aren´t they special?

I'm linking to All Seasons.

Mushrooms!

If you look well you might spot some gnomes..   I did!  :)

Photo taken last Sunday in the back of our garden.

On woodchips..

I still have some more photos from the Woudagemaal pumping station to show you, but today a picture that I took around this time last year. As we have a small wood-chipper to reduce branches to smaller pieces, there was a 'field' of two or three m2 of woodchips in the back of our garden. And to our big surprise within a week these mushrooms appeared there, apparently out of nothing.. They didn't last very long but it was a lovely sight. :)

Signs of Autumn

Earlier today we were cycling near the village of Smeerling (in the south of the province Groningen) and found these beauties next to the road.