It's Fungi time

I am a member of Sydney Fungal Studies Group, so March to November is eyes down to the ground and up to about eye-height. Three species found in the lawns of Church Street so far. Jude thought she had spotted an interesting bright orange one - but it was a flake of rusted gutter. Thanks Alan, who has repaired the dodgy downpipe,  levelled and plumbed the tanks. 

The first questions asked about fungi is "can you eat it" We reply, "You can eat any fungus you want, it may kill you, it may not, either way you will very likely be very very sorry". What is the difference between a toadstool and a mushroom? Nothing except common usage as people try to separate poisonous from non-poisonous. Stick to the commercially-grown mushies. Even then, avoid the older "on special" ones as fungi undergo chemical changes as they age and what may not upset your tummy when fresh may do so when they are older.

A fungus is the spore/fruiting  body of a vast network in the soil. Fungi have a root-like system called mycellium. It creeps through the soil and can extract nutrients and minerals more efficiently than the finest of plant hair-roots. Where mycellium and plant roots touch, mycellium pushes into or around the cells and makes a connection. Fungus and plant exchange and share nutrients to mutual advantage, with the scales probably tipped a bit more in the fungus' favour. This network connects most of the plants in the area - tree to shrub to grass and vice versa.  Digging disrupts the connections. A gardeners spade should be used more like a surgical instrument than a plough - with precision and only as necessary. Do what happens in nature, layer upon layer allow leaves, mulch and compost to blanket and be broken down by fungi, moulds, smuts, soil biota and the bigger animals like worms.
The brown mushies in the picture look like you could eat them because they resemble the commercial kind. See warning above! Identifying a fungus is a long process. Gill shape? Does it have a skirt around the stem? Colour and smell? Does it change colour when bruised or cut? Relative size of cap and stem?  What does it grow on (substrate)? What is the pattern of the spores shed when the cap is left on paper overnight? What is  their shape and colour when seen under the microscope? Many more characteristics can be included. Australia has at least 250,000 species of fungus and only a relative few have been positively identified and recorded fully.
The little pale lemon coloured beauty and the big brown ones were all attached to grass roots. There were some "puffballs",  attached to the gum tree roots,  which I didn't photograph.