Entoloma hochstetteri (4)

A massed display in the Waitakere Ranges, west of Auckland city, 2004.

It is unusual to see so many blue toadstools at one time, (according to Clive Shirley who found this lot) and these are only a tiny part of the collection. A large photographic depth of field was needed to capture them. The toadstools appeared in moss under Kauri trees in a local area after the rains of late autumn, together with many other fungi. The rest of the forest only had a few and a month later E. hochstetteri was no longer fruiting here, probably because cold winter weather had arrived.

I will check again next year to find if the display recurs. Experience in Murphy's Bush, in the few years the author has been taking an interest, is that fungi one year are often not fruiting the next.

(2005: Even more cropped up this year!)