Garden Fungi – Leratiomyces ceres

 

(© FE Guard)

(© FE Guard)

 
Grows in MULCH.
 
Common Name: Redlead Roundhead
 
Fruit-body: This is a medium sized fungus is mushroom shaped has a rounded and convex cap. The cap is 15 – 50 mm in diameter and a very bright red or orange red colour, it is usually sticky and may have small white flecks on it and around the edge. The stem is 20 – 100 mm tall, whitish with a very pale orange red tint and sometimes with a suggestion of a ring near the top. There are gills under the cap, they start out whitish but soon turn a dark brownish purple colour as the spores ripen.
 
Spore print: Purplish brown.
 
Habit: Growing in very large groups wherever mulch is used, often the stems are joined together at the bottom so that they form clumps. This was a rare fungus that can still occasionally be found in rainforest habitats in Queensland, but it loves mulch. So, with the huge increase in the use of mulch, it is now found in parks and gardens in Queensland and all round the world including the botanic gardens at Kew and in New York. A true Aussie traveller that has become a weed.