Tasmania's fungi season off to slow start, but when rain comes here are some species to look out for

Dr Helen Robertson says the fungi name Mycena interrupta is easy to remember because they interrupt your walk. (ABC Radio Hobart: Georgie Burgess)

Hunting for Tasmania’s weird and wonderful fungi is off to a slow start this season due to the dry weather conditions.

Only the state’s dampest pockets have so far been able to put on a show of colourful and diverse fungi.

Autumn fungi hunting is a pastime for many Tasmanians, who rug up and head out on walks to see what they can find and photograph.

Fungi enthusiast Helen Robertson said there was still time for the fungi to flush if decent rainfalls hit the state.

“The best thing is a good 30 or 40 millimetres after a long dry spell,” Dr Robertson said.

“Then wait a week and then go and have a look.

“You’ve got to give them a chance to grow.”

Dr Robertson is a retired zoologist who runs a bed and breakfast on her property at Rocky Cape on the state’s north west.

She said those wanting to see many fungi would need to go walking on the West Coast and far north west where there has been rain.

“It’s been awfully dry in Tasmania this past three years, but this [year has been] particularly dry,” she said.

Dr Robertson and her fungi-hunting friend Pat Harrison recently went searching near the Trowutta Arch in the north-west corner.

“We found over 70 species all in perfect condition,” she said.

“So where there’s been decent rain, the fungi are there.

“But where I am on my property, I took my guests for a wander around [on Monday] and I didn’t see a single one.”

Dr Robertson said Tasmania was “fungi central for the world”.

“Elsewhere can have a lot of a particular fungi but here we have the diversity, just thousands of different species everywhere you look.”

A fungi friendship

Dr Robertson first got into fungi about 12 years ago when she discovered a bright purple fungi on her property.

“I googled ‘bright purple fungi Tasmania’, as you do, and thinking surely it must be something amazingly different that no-one’s ever seen before because I haven’t seen it before,” she said.

“And of course, they’re quite common, but uncommonly beautiful.”

She joined a fungi group on social media and befriended nearby fungi fancier Pat Harrison.

“So I contacted Pat and said, ‘Could I please come out with you and learn something?’ And she said ‘Sure, how about tomorrow?'” Dr Robertson said.

“Pat and I have been going out with each other for 12 years. And I think almost every time we go out we’ll find something we haven’t seen before.”

The Tasmanian fungi group now has more than 20,000 members.

Dr Robertson has shared some fungi that amateur hunters can look for this autumn.

Fly agaric

It looks like it’s straight out of a fairytale and the Amanita muscaria or fly agaric, is popular with children.

“It’s the one that everybody knows. The red one with the spots, the pixie mushroom,” Dr Robertson said.

“It’s an introduced species, but they’re awfully bright, awfully pretty, very photogenic, and people will find them.”

The mushrooms like to grow near trees from the northern hemisphere like pines and silver birches, but have also spread to grow near native trees.

The spots are actually remnants of the small white sphere the mushroom started life in before hatching out of it.

Yellow ‘clusters’ and wax caps

Dr Robertson said a species that people could commonly find in paddocks or on dead wood and old tree roots across the state was Gymnopilus junonius.

“It is quite big and often grows in big clusters of 20 or 30 mushrooms altogether,” she said.

The orange fungi have a paler yellow stem.

“There’ll be big clusters of them and they really look quite spectacular,” she said.

“People will go past a stump that they’ve been walking past for a couple of years and suddenly it’s surrounded by this mass of huge mushrooms.”

Wax caps or the Hygrocybe group are small, brightly coloured fungi.

“Although they’re not very big, because of their extremely bright colours, they do show up in the forest,” Dr Robertson said.

“These are generally the wet area ones, deep in the forest gullies and near waterfalls.”

The fungi can be bright green, pink, yellow, and white.

Pixie’s parasol and Russulas

A crowd favourite is the small, bright blue fungi called Mycena interrupta, or pixie’s parasol.

“My way of remembering that one’s name is they always interrupt your walk. You have to stop and look,” she said.

“But there are so many other sorts of Mycena as well, from little tiny thin white ones to brown ones to pinky-coloured ones, reddish-coloured ones.”

Russulas are a traditional-looking mushroom and come in different colours and Dr Robertson said they were often chewed.

“The possums, the wallabies, and the slugs and snails all think they’re fabulous,” she said.

“It’s very rare to find a pretty one because there’s always someone who got there first to have their dinner.”

Corals and ‘nightmare’ cordyceps

The coral group of fungi are brightly coloured and popular with photographers.

“When you find them in the forest and there are quite a few, it’s like walking into a garden of coral,” Dr Robertson said.

“They’re just all over the place, so brightly coloured. They’re pretty fun.”

Cordyceps gunnii are fungi that live off insect larvae, and the genus was the basis of the video game and post-apocalyptic drama The Last of Us.

“The mushroom always emerges out of the head of the animal and pushes through the soil,” Dr Robertson said.

“Kids always love gross stuff, so I think these are fun to find.

“They’re truly horrendous, it’s like something out of a nightmare. You couldn’t make it any worse if you imagined.”