Upgrade your Flash!

An Unusual Mycoid

An Unusual Mycoid

I am not unaccustomed to my subjects inspecting me in turn as I make my captures, but not by eyeballs growing from the pileus, or cap, of a mushroom. It is these kinds of discoveries that led me to the City Park and its unique ecology.

The eye appeared to be functional, tracking me with the iris. No eyelids to speak of, and the iris was remiscent of that of a reptile, such as a lizard or snake. I was hesitant to take a sample for dissection, thinking it might be a singular specimen. I made a photonic capture for examination at a later date.


Updated Four Days Later

I returned to the site of the first eyeball mushroom to find that, thanks in part to the excessive rain, it had doubled in size to nearly twelve inches in height. Scattered through the surrounding underbrush, I discovered literally hundreds more of the fungi. It was quite unsettling how each and every eye managed to track me simultaneously, no matter where I stood.

I brought out my specimen kit to collect one of the smaller individuals. Astonishingly, as soon as my scalpel bit into stipe near the base, the entire mushroom withdrew violently into the soil with a soft popping sound. The air filled with an echoing of the sound as every other mushroom vanished into the loam. I dug with a small spade for quite some time, uncovering a network of mushroom-sized tunnels that I could have spent days exploring, but alas, the rains struck up again and made digging far too difficult.

I suspect that whatever organism I had discovered, it was not in fact a species of fungi, but something with a clever form of camouflage, perhaps a subspecies of the lower faery endemic to the Park. I won’t be able to know for sure until I have collected a specimen for dissection. I have put out the word among the park urchin gangs that I will pay a dime for a live specimen. Mrs. Dowd claims that the auspices call for clear skies in the coming week. I hope to search the surrounding area for any sign of my little invader, should the auspices prove true.

Sincerely, Julius T. Roundbottom

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

« | »

Learn More