An exuberant growth of a white fungus on soil prompted this somewhat frustrating exploration which has lasted over several days and many images. In spite of their explosive growth potential, these are fragile organisms and multiple stacks were rather mushy. In some stacks the radial arms could be seen to wave around from one image to the next. I first tried diffused LED lights, and then moved to strobes. Bits of the fungus were moved from the dry mounting surface to a wet paper, and finally to a “tent” composed of the top of a plastic cup with a shooting aperture cut into the bottom, placed on the wet paper, hoping to maintain hydration, humidity, temperature, and avoid any errant wind currents.
Ironically, this was cropped from one of the early images with LED lighting. I believe what I am seeing here is a group of orange conidiophores, perhaps Pencillium or Aspergillus, arising from the transparent fungal hyphae. I would gladly learn from other opinions or thoughts about any of this!
Leonard
