Found some horse mushrooms today - how early is this !

[silva]

Found two horse mushrooms today - how early is this ! The one was big enough to have gone over - must be the hot/ wet conditions. You sometimes see them in late august but never in June.
Also saw perhaps 150 / 200 or so orchids which was a treat !

 

[Androo]

That is early... the earliest I ever have found them was 18th August (last year) - best get checking my spots when this rain subsides!

 

[Mafro]

It's been a strange year for fungi. Could be attributed to both this years weird Spring, and/or last years weird Autumn. If fungi feel threatened they will put up fruiting bodies, and they may well be what is happening with these early finds.

I have a feeling this this is going to be a strange year for fungi, and I cannot wait

 

[Geoff Dann]

I found an abundant fruiting of Agaricus moelleri yesterday. It is not particularly early for members of this genus.

 

[Geoff Dann]

It's been a strange year for fungi. Could be attributed to both this years weird Spring, and/or last years weird Autumn.

Sometimes fungi fruit in abundance when there was a really bad previous years(s), but I don't think that applies to the Agaricus species last year, because they were one of the groups that produced lots of mushrooms in November after October was a write-off. If there really are lots of mushrooms about to appear, then it will be more to do with the very wet spring.

If fungi feel threatened they will put up fruiting bodies...

Do you have any scientific evidence to support this? Plants respond to some sorts of threats by flowering, but fungi are not plants. My experience is that when the conditions are not good for fungi, they do nothing at all...

Geoff