Fun with Fungi

We were amazed to find a huge amount of mushrooms in the Nature Walk when we did the Weka Litter Clean-up one Thursday.

The common name for this mushroom is the honey mushroom, maybe because of its colour.

Everyone chose one mushroom.  

We made spore prints of our mushrooms on the Science table (spores act a little like seeds for fungi).  Mrs Bear cut off the stems with a sharp knife and then we carefully lay them on paper.  We enclosed them under bowls or tubs so that the spores could not escape, and waited. 

After a few days, the spores dropped onto the paper to make a s spore pattern.  Some mushrooms were old and dry, with not many spore left, but some were young and juicy and they dropped plenty of spores.

Here are two of the best, most distinct spore prints - from Taylor and Maryanne.