Mushrooms and Fungi - Variety

Many species of fungus do not have common names and are referred to solely by their scientific names but don't let that put you off searching for some of these colourful and unusual life forms of the rainforest.

Mushrooms and fungi have been classified into types based on their structure. There are those of the classic toadstool shape with the familiar gills under the cap (the Agarics), a toadstool shape but with pores under the cap (the Boletes), a type of fungus that looks somewhat like the finger sponges of coral reefs (the Clavarias), a round puff-ball on the soil with a little elaborate hole on the top (the Gasteromycetes), the leathery or shelf type (bracket) fungi usually seen on the sides of trees (the Thelephores) and a few other unusual types.

The different typs:

Bracket fungi are more visible, some being a permanent fixture to the outside of old wood and slowly growing larger over a long period of time. Although these fungi are usually dull colours, there are a few that are white or orange and all bracket fungus are a common sight to walkers in the forest.	Some mushrooms have the traditional curved cap of the edible field mushroom but there are those whose caps are curved upward like a chalice or bowl.
Some of the fungi come in the most beautiful and surprising colours, as shown here.	Crinoline Mushroom (Dictyophora indusiata) A showy species from the rainforest, this pale brown mushroom has a lacy veil which hangs down from the steeply sloped cap and reaches almost to the level of the soil. It smells awful but the flies don't mind.
In the Wet Tropics, the night-time visitor to the rainforest is treated to a view of some fungus species that would hardly grab anyone's attention during the day. That is because some mushrooms glow in the dark! After the sun goes down, areas appear to be bathed in dappled moonlight - until you look up in the sky and see that it's cloudy without a moon! This fungus glows in the palest, coldest white and is both eerie yet enigmatic. These species which glow in the dark are called 'bioluminescent' and their 'light' is created by the reaction of enzymes with other chemicals to produce a by-product which gives off energy in the form of light. You can read more about this in our Bioluminescence page.