Stewart Island Ulva Island fungi

My introduction to Stewart Island Fungi was over 40 years ago when as Forest Ranger I hosted a Swiss Botanist, whose specialty was fungi. His name if I remember correctly was Ebon Horack [sic]. He told me that there had been so little work done on Stewart Island fungi that a botanist would perhaps find a new species every day, and a new genus every week. Now I have no idea if that was accurate or not, but it did stick in my memory. I fear I wasn't a very good collector for him, as one fungi looked much the same as the next to my inexperienced eye, and after a couple of days was bringing in many duplicates.

In our wet climate fungi appear to do very well, and add splashes of colour to the forest. These have attracted my camera, and then my interest in learing their names. Sadly there doesn't appear to be much in the way of good written guides, and all I could find is a rather interesting small book "A Photographic Guide to Mushrooms and other Fungi of New Zealand" By Geoff Ridley.

So the text accompanying photographs on this page will be pretty much drawn from the above publication, with some observations of my own. I hope that I have correctly identified the the specimens in the photos below. If not I certainly welcome being corrected.

We have an occasional blog recording our observations of the natural world of Stewart Island through the seasons.

Fungi of Ulva Island

Visit our Blog

Wood Ear Jelly ..... This is growing on a dead Psudopanax tree on our boundary. It is quite soft, somewaht similar in texture to a dogs ear and about 60 mm across.

Orange Mosscap (?) .... My camera really isn't up to photographing such small subjects (its about 2mm across the cap). This was found growing amongst tiny ferns and a single spider orchid on a very rotten mossy log.

Scarlet Bracketgill..... I found these growing on a very wet rotting Kamahi in mid summer.

Crimson Helmet ... growing on a patch of bare earth. The caps appeared almost overnight, and lasted only about 2 weeks before vanishing

Jelly Stemmed Helmet (?) .... I found this on a holiday cottage path, whilst doing the rat round. Just 10mm high and a couple of mm across the cap it is really too small for me to identify. So just a guess.

Baby Fingered Coral . This strange cluster of fingers appeared alongside a track on Ulva in February, and is just now (August) starting to die. This photo doesn't really do the colour justice, it being a very delicate creamy coral colour.

Yellow Chanterelle quite small and alongside a track, I walked right past this apricot/creamy coloured up turned cap, and it was a guest who pointed it out to me.

Amarillia sp prob (Olive Honeycap). This clump appeared on a small section of rotted timber on an otherwise healthy mature Rimu tree, and then dissapeared almost as quickly.

Finger Jelly (?) Looking like nothing so much as a cluster of entwined scarlet worms tails poking out of a bank the book says this should be yellow to yellow orange colour, so I hope i've got the name correct.

Morganella pyriformis.. a small puffball

Follow this link to a Landcare Research Fungi Resource.

I must thank Peter Johnston of Landcare Research for his assistance and corrections in identification of some of my photos above.

These two photos are of the fruiting bodies of a slime mould Lycogala (? L. epidendrum)

The second photo is at the ripe stge