I remember one day in August following a period of rain that while out hiking the trails I began to notice the abundance of fungi - Mushrooms. Some being small, some waxy and thin but others thick, with many earthly colors and textures.
My gallery below shows the many fungi that were growing in and around the trails that week. The thing about mushrooms are they normally don't hang around for very long, making your chances to photograph them short lived. The best time in my area is when it has been slightly cooler and wet followed by a warming trend, it appears the spores like this type of weather and they began to shoot up from the decaying matter. Which brings me to the topic where do you find them? Answer is almost anywhere you find some moister and decaying matter for them to grow in.
I rarely find them in bright dry spots, more often than not, I find them growing under and around trees or moist grassy areas. I also don't find them in dense areas of the forest, but in places that receive some filtered sunlight. Now, I have been asked do I eat them? My answer is I never eat anything I don't know for sure will not kill me, therefore I don't attempt to collect or eat Mushrooms from the wild, I find it satisfying to photograph and display the pictures I take of the Mushrooms and Fungi.
I am mildly interested in trying to determine which species were poisonous or not but found that many look very similar and trying to figure that out with no real purpose in mind is a waste of time for a non-eater of wild mushrooms + I could always use my photographs to track down he species.and make notes after the fact.
If you looked through the gallery, you may discover how many species are growing in such a small area of a few square miles. Some fungi look like "brain" corals, others are jellylike, some spongy and others waxy. This one to the left is a very odd looking fungi almost like an evil looking horn. It was growing from the bottom of a fallen tree where the dirt was still clinging from the roots and moss had began to grow. The tree had fallen along a section of the trail where only some morning light reached it an the remainder of the day indirect reflected light.