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Jack o'lantern mushrooms


Evan

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My neighbor and I were scouting the woods for the upcoming archery season and found a giant flush of jack o'lantern mushrooms. They were dispersing spores like crazy. I was able to get a decent close up. The light was hitting them just right.

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Great photo! It baffles me that mushrooms release so many thousands of spores and like zero mushrooms grow around them.... do only a couple mushrooms really make it out of the thousands released? Like why wouldn't you find a couple flushes in the area of this mushroom in the future? Idk... it just seems like no mushrooms are growing at my place where there used to be quite a few

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Cool photo! 

Jaypsnyder, with a saprobic species like Omphalotus illudens (Jack 'o Lantern), the fungus colonizes dead/dying organic matter --in this case wood/roots-- and produces mushrooms when the time/conditions are right. When the nutrients are used up, the fungus expires. For some species (like Armillaria mellea) newly germinating spores produce mycelium that may merge with a previously-existing established fungus of the same type. It seems to me that this feature may either help to spread the established fungus into nearby areas, or perhaps with some species just reinforce the fungal colonization in some highly localized way. But, I'm guessing that the probability is extremely low that a spore finds a completely new habitat and then begins the complete fungal life cycle from the very beginning. This would explain why so many spores are dispersed. The probability of winning a state lottery with a given combination of numbers is very low. But if you purchase millions of tickets, your chances are pretty good that you will hit at least one winner. 

 

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