Living on Others

It's all interconnected, is Nature. And here is the perfect illustration; a parasite from the plant world, broomrape (Orobanche sp.). It might be Thistle Broomrape, Orobanche reticulata, but then it might be quite a number of similar but different broomrapes. The lack of any green makes them very obvious, in this year's wet and sunny Spring:

No greens for me, chum

The wet spring has also meant a bloom in funghi, and this, I think, is Tremella mesenterica, growing on a felled oak in the woodlands. In a few years, the funghi will have liquidised the tree, enriching the humus and helping recycle the nutrients back to the new trees already growing around it.

 
We are alive thanks to these cycles and recycles...ad infinitum.

The Big Wet

It's been wet. Very wet. We are now in December and there is a slight reprieve from the rain, but the Autumn was the wettest ever, and we had the equivalent of almost six months of rain in one month, October:

The Rain in Spain falls mainly...in October

The consequence has been a lot of mud especially on the track down to the village, fields that we cannot plough - which will delay our hay crop in 2019 - and a flourishing fungal population.

Torc of the Devil...

This first fungus I cannot identify, but the next is Ramaria aurea, known as Peu de Rata Groc, or Yellow Rat's Foot in Catalan. It's edible, if eaten young (it says here*. I'm not brave enough to try...)

Christmas Coral

 And finally, my favourite because it's so, so bad, Clathrus ruber, Gita de Bruixa (Witches' Net) in Catalan, the Latticed Stinkhorn in English. It looks scary, traps and eats insects, and stinks of dog poo. Yes, dog poo...

Stinks to Heaven (if you are a fly)

*Guia dels Bolets dels Països Catalans, 7th edition, R. Pascual,  Portic, Barcelona, 2007.