The Small Stagshorn - (Calocera cornea)

I was out at Lake Poinsett State Park last week. They have been draining the lake so they can fix the dam, and I was curious to see how far along they were and just what a drained lake looks like. Meh. It wasn’t anything special. So, I walked around the outskirts of the woods a little bit and looked for anything interesting to take pictures of. I did find some pretty cool stuff, like this little yellow slime fungus growing on a dead branch.

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Apparently, this is a pretty common fungus, but it is often overlooked, due to its tiny size. They are a saprobic species, which means that they decompose organic material, and this particular species likes to eat barkless hardwood trunks and branches like the one I found on the forest floor. They tend to grow in cylindrical shaped tubes that almost never branch and can be up to 2 cm tall. The tallest out of the group that I found was probably about 1.5 cm.

It is not often that I am able to a type of fungus with any confidence whatsoever, but I think I may have hit this one on the head. If not, please let me know in the comments! I am on a quest to learn more about the magnificent kingdom of fungi!

I found most of the information in this post on the following websites:

http://www.svims.ca/council/Jelly.htm

http://www.eniscuola.net/en/argomento/fungi/fungi-knowledge/saprobic-fungi/

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/calocera_cornea.html

* All photos taken by me using Canon Rebel T3; Lens Model: EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II; post processing performed using Darktable unless otherwise labeled.

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Thanks for reading today’s article! If you enjoyed it, maybe you would like to check out some of my other recent content:

Learn about the silver spotted skipper and its creep looking caterpillar.

Read my rant about the confusion between venomous and poisonous organisms that I entered into @suesa’s Science Challenge #2

Take a walking tour of Hardy, AR

Or, read my newfound use for Steemit in my classroom.