A few days ago, I hadn’t even heard of the genus Panellus. It was another scientific name of another species I had not yet come across in my travels. Or so I thought.
If you’ve been following along, I’m in my fungi era. I’m loving discovering all of these new lifeforms, each with its own unique shape, colour and size. I’ve been posting the ones I’m unsure of (which, let’s be honest, is a lot of them) on various fungi identification pages. Knowledge is power and all that.
But one photo I posted of a ridiculously pretty little fungi caught the attention of David Finlay. I’ve profiled David before and I’m sure many of you follow him on various socials or have attended one of his talks on bioluminescence.
David is all about chasing light and bioluminescent fungi are one of his passions. You see, the pretty little paddle-shaped fungi I had photographed turned out to be a species that David had been hunting for. If he was able to locate the species and photograph it glowing, that would make four species of bioluminescent fungi that he has captured. No small feat.
And so after a bit of back and forth, I offered to head back to the area I found the stick that was home to a few dozen tiny paddles (they ranged from a millimetre or two to maybe half a centimetre). Nature nerds understand the drive to tick off certain bucket list species and so I was happy to help. Except the weather wasn’t. That torrential rain? That was the backdrop for my little adventure into the bush.
But it was worth it. I found the teeny treasures once again*.
While I was curled up in my PJs on the lounge later that night, David headed out into the horrendous weather, battling leeches and sideways rain. His goal was to see if he could capture the eerie green glow, invisible to the naked eye.
Turns out he could! The caps of the fungi weren’t glowing, but the stalks of the juvenile ones lit up with a vivid green glow, which counts in terms of ticking off bucket lists, surely? From this, David deduced that we had found the fungi a little too late in its lifecycle.
But now, after a long search, we’ve been able to pinpoint a known location ready to try for that glow again. And because I now know what I’m looking for, I found another crop growing on decaying wood in Mt Keira Summit Park. Too old to glow, but another location to add to the list.
And that’s the beauty of connecting with others; we get to share information, learn from one another and add to the scientific record, all while experiencing some of the most beautiful things nature has to offer.
*There’s a couple of opinions on the actual species of Panellus we photographed. Some have identified these as Panellus pusillus, others Panellus luxfilamentus