Perhaps you thought that mushrooms are small, ugly plants, but with the help of the captures by the enthusiastic nature photographers, you will be amazed with the beauty of the mushrooms that are very much different from what you find in the woods or in your local groceries.

Most people consider mushrooms to be the small, ugly cousins of the plant kingdom, but theirs is a surprisingly beautiful and wonderful world waiting to be explored. These beautiful mushrooms, captured by enthusiastic nature photographers, are a far cry from the ones you find in the woods or your local grocery store.

A mushroom (or toadstool) is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting bodyof a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source.

The standard for the name “mushroom” is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word “mushroom” is most often applied to those fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) on the underside of the cap. These gills produce microscopic spores that help the fungus spread across the ground or its occupant surface.

“Mushroom” describes a variety of gilled fungi, with or without stems, and the term is used even more generally, to describe both the fleshy fruiting bodies of some Ascomycota and the woody or leathery fruiting bodies of some Basidiomycota, depending upon the context of the word.

Most mushrooms, as we know them, are actually just the reproductive structure of the fungus they belong to – their fungal networks expand far further underground, and some fungi don’t even sprout the sort of mushrooms that we’re used to seeing. In fact, depending on your definition of “organism,” the largest living organism in the world is a fungus.

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Photographer Steve Axford:  Hairy mycena

 

Steve Axford Photo: Cyathus novaezelandiae

 

Steve Axford Photo: Spider Fungi

 

Scarlet waxcap (Hygrocybe coccinea) (credit: FLPA / Alamy Stock Photo)

 

Golden spindles (Clavulinopsis fusiformis) (credit: Bob Gibbons / Alamy Stock Photo)

 

Orange Peel fungus, Edible but doesn’t taste like orange fruit

 

Lionâ s Mane Mushrooms

 

California Fungi

 

Devils Bolete, Poisonous

 

Oyster mushroom, Edible

 

 

Bochte Hygrocybe Flavescens

 

 

Honey Mushroom (Armillaria mellea) – Edible

 

Steve Axford Photo: Marasmius Haematocephal

 

Steve Axford Photo, Panus Fasciatus Edible

 

Hydnellum Peckii

 

Favolaschia Calocera (Orange Fungus)

 

Coprinus Comatus

 

Clathrus Ruber

 

 

Fantastic Fungi: Mushroom Panus Lecomtei  Photography by Steve Axford

 

Steve Axford Photo: Cyptotrama aspratum or Gold tuft

 

Common Puffball Lycoperdon perlatum Enfield UK

 

Steve Axford Photo

 

Rhodotus Palmatus

 

Orange crepidotus

 

 

Steve Axford Photo; Colossal

 

Steve Axford: Hygrocybe stevensoniae

 

Steve Axford Photo

 

Wonderful Fungi: Macro Photography of Mushrooms

 

Pinwheel Mushrooms

 

Panus lecomtei

 

Leratiomyces sp. Booyong

 

Colossal

 

Mycena adonis

 

Porcelain Fungus ( Oudemansiella mucida ) | by johnrm2013

 

Schizophyllum Commune

 

Laccaria amethystina

 

Russula emetica

 

Steve Axford Photo

 

Mycena fungi by Steve Axford

 

Steve Axford Photo

 

Steve Axford Photo

 

Sky blue mushroom. Entoloma Hochstetteri (virescens), Fox Glacier, New Zealand

 

Miguel Olivera Photo: Colus hirudinosus

 

 

Steve Axford Photo: Stinkhorns ( Aseroe Rubra)

 

Bridal Veil Stinkhorn Fungus (Phallus indusiatus)

 

Chorioactis

 

Amanita jacksonii — Eastern Caesar’s Mushroom

 

 Geastrum Quadrifidum 

 

Geastrum Minimum

Polyporus squamosus (Dryad’s Saddle)

 

Clavaria zollingeri (the violet coral) | by Boy of the Fores

 

Red Fly Agaric (Amanita Muscaria)

 

Black Morel ( Morchella Conica)

 

Steve Axford Photo: Red cup fungi (phillipsia subpurpurea)

 

Mutinus boninensis

 

Leratiomyces mashroom by Steve Axford 

 

Nail fungi by Arthur Anker

 

Steve Axford Photo: Mycena interrupta, Poisonous

 

Bioluminescent Mushroom Fungus Panellus Stipticus (Bitter Oyster)

 

Photo by Steve Axford (Blue Leratiomyces)

 

Mycena austrororida

 

Leratiomyces ceres by Steve AXford

 

Hair Ice

 

Amethyst Deceiver (Laccaria amethystea) by Steve Axford

 

Coral fungiPicture: Steve Axford

 

TarkinePicture: Steve Axford

 

Red Hygrocybes by Steve Axford

 

Cymatoderma elegans var. lamellatum or Leathery Goblet

 

Chlorociboria Aeruginoa

 

Chlorociboria Aeruginoa Crepidotus sp.

 

Steve Axford Photo:Campanella junghuhnii

 

Porcelain Fungus (Oudemansiella mucida)

 

 

Clitocybe semiocculta

 

 

Steve Axford Photo: Mycena chlorophos

 

Cordyceps gunnii

 

The  Sleeping  Fawn-White-Mycena

 

Fantastic Fungi: Mind Blowing Mushroom Diversity Photographed by Steve Axford

 

 

 

Forest Fauna chasingthegreenfaerie

Radically Diverse Australian Fungi Photographed by Steve Axford