Townsville wet season a perfect breeding ground for new fungi crops

Townsville lawns, parks and median strips have seen a mushroom explosion, with recent downpours the perfect recipe for all sorts of colourful fungi to grow.

Felix Joe, 20 months, from Mount Isa checks out the mushrooms popping up along The Strand this week.

Townsville lawns, parks and median strips have seen a mushroom explosion, with recent downpours the perfect recipe for all sorts of colourful fungi to grow.

JCU University Australian Tropical Herbarium postdoctoral research fellow Matthew Barrett has been studying fungi for 25 years and said the mushrooms emerging around the city was a good sign.

“It is fantastic and very healthy. You might see a fairy ring of mushrooms on the lawn and inside the fairy ring, it is greener than outside,” Mr Barrett said.

“That is because the fungus have already spread and expanded that ring and they are releasing nutrients and the grass is able to grow greener.”

The golf-ball puffball is a purple-spored puffball, and is very common on lawns. Photo: Bel Rose

The drumstick like one with scales is a still expanding, and will become a mushroom-like fruit body. It is a parasol mushroom, a species of the genus Macrolepiota. Photo: Bel Rose

Mount Louisa mum Rebecca Cali didn’t mind her five-month-old daughter Astrid playing among the edible white parasol (macrolepiota dolichaula) mushrooms that popped up on The Strand this week.

“We got quite a bit of rain so our lawn is nice and green again,” Ms Cali said.

“I’ve definitely seen lots of mushrooms since the rain. It’s almost like they pop up overnight.”

And 20-month-old Felix Joe from Mt Isa loved them too.

Five-month-old Astrid Cali plays with some edible Macrolepiota dolichaula mushrooms.

There are about 5000 species of fungi visible to the naked eye in North Queensland, with 10 times as many that are too tiny to see.

The form that the fruit body takes on after it spores is what determines the names that are given to the mushrooms including toadstools, puffballs or bracket fungi.

Fungi grow in leaf litter, fertilised lawns, well-mulched gardens, eucalypt woodlands especially on sandy soil and the rainforest.

The yellow striate one is flowerpot parasol, Leucocoprinus birnbaumii, and is very common in mulch and pots.

Mr Barrett hoped Townsville residents would think twice about weeding their new crops.

“The mushroom itself is fine filaments through the soil and the only way that you can get rid of that is if you dig up all the soil and throw it away,” he said.

“The real questions is, do you really need to get rid of your mushrooms? Very few mushrooms are actually toxic and there are far more toxic plants out there.”

Mr Barrett identified several fungi photographed by Instagram user ‘townsvillefungihunter’ Bel Rose, including one that resembled a golf ball. He said it was a purple-spored puffball, and was common on lawns.

Originally published as Townsville wet season a perfect breeding ground for new fungi crops