Tree Fungus

A tree fungus that looks like a ruffled skirt, growing in swirls around an ornamental pear stump in my yard. It’s in my strawberry bed next to my deck, on the south side of the house, but the neighbor’s house is pretty close. The strawberries get the right amount of sun at the right time of year, then they go dormant. It turned out not to be enough sun for my blueberry bushes so they’ll move to another area of the yard.

But that’s just about the perfect growing conditions for a tree fungus on an old and decaying tree stump that’s about 8″ tall. And it puts on a beautiful show.

Funny thing about fungi—they have many names. Fungi are so widespread and people tend to call things something that works for themselves and possibly their local residents, and it sticks. Then they meet up with another group of people who are also familiar with the same fungus but call it something different, sometimes very different but often very much the same and sometimes they use both. Often you’ll find a list of names and their alternates for one fungus. Then came Linneaus, who thought it would be a good idea if everyone who worked with living things called them by the same name, so that adds yet another name, but most people still tend to use their familiar names.

This tree fungus looks like so many other tree fungi that I gave up trying to identify it right now. I’ll pick up on that a little later.

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