p>The place where I am standing is an endangered lowland subtropical rainforest near my home, located on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia.

In the past ten years, I have taken many pictures of mushrooms in this forest. In addition, I went to shoot mushrooms in some of the most remote forests on the planet. Shooting mushrooms has become one of my passions and completely changed my view of the world.

This is the first mushroom I took. Its scientific name is Cortinarius archeri.

▲ Cortinarius archeri, Cortinarius

Why would I shoot it?

It was 2003, and my wife died of breast cancer five years ago. I also had a disease that could be life-threatening.

I got through these two things. But when you face death, you will rethink life. I wanted to reshape myself. The wilderness and ancient forests along the coast of Australia have become my refuge.

One day when I was walking along the seaside path, I found this purple mushroom.

I didn’t even know there were purple mushrooms. If you ask me what a mushroom is, I might tell you it is not a plant, nothing more.

I was still working as a computer software engineer.

Never studied botany or zoology, and did not understand any life sciences. But after I took this mushroom, I became interested in the fungus. My view of the forest has since changed completely-I no longer look up, but down, searching for the rare treasures hidden on the ground.

These are several kinds of mushrooms I discovered earlier. At that time I paid special attention to color.

This is a bright green wet umbrella, a very beautiful green mushroom that grows in the rain forest of Tasmania.

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It’s pretty small. The cap is only 1~3 cm wide. I was very excited when I found this specimen, because they are very difficult to see-moss green mushrooms grow in green moss.

I squatted down to take a picture, thinking it was a very special single specimen. But when I stood up, I realized that I had been kneeling on a whole piece of green mushroom hidden in green moss just now.

▲ Bright green wet umbrella growing on green moss

This is the genus Russula.

Usually the appearance looks perfect. The bacteria are red, yellow, purple, and green. The white gills below are very bright.

‍▲ Russula

They are very attractive to photographers. Many are edible. Some are tasty, some are not tasty, and some cannot be eaten at all.

This is one of my favorite mushrooms. It is called dazzling blue mushroom.

It usually appears on the fallen logs of many forests in southern Australia in April and May.

Isn’t it pretty?

▲ Dazzling blue mushrooms

All these types are what people usually think of when they think of mushrooms. They all have a stalk, a cap, and gills. But some of the mushrooms I discovered later did not resemble mushrooms at all, so I realized that my understanding of “what is a mushroom” was too narrow.

For example, this orange fungus is a species of Cladosporium.

They come in all kinds of dazzling colors. Does it look like corals on the seabed?

▲ Cladosporium

These mushrooms successfully attracted me as a photographer.

This is one of the many polypores that I started to see, Yunzhi Corioporus.

▲ Yunzhi Sphaerocarpus

This fungus will survive for a long time. They break down huge logs and tree stumps. So even if the other mushrooms are gone, they will grow.

This is Auricularia phylla. It is a kind of ascomycetes, commonly known as goblet bacteria.

▲ Phyllostachys edulis

I never knew that fungus still has such a beautiful black color.

By the way, I heard that this fungus is extremely toxic. So don’t be fooled by its beautiful appearance.

Many Chinese people know this bacteria. It is called Coral Hericium. We know this is a coral tooth fungus.

‍▲ Coral Hericium

We saw this fungus in the forests of Yunnan. The locals tell us it is an edible mushroom.

As I began to discover these diverse and diverse fungi, it was like opening the door to a new world. I realized that mushrooms are more than just colorful.

Many people think that lichens are a kind of plant, but in fact they are a symbiosis product of a kind of algae or cyanobacteria and two or three or even three or four fungi. Algae provide carbohydrates for fungi through photosynthesis, and the role of fungi is to provide the structure of lichens. Every lichen needs its algae and all kinds of fungi to survive.