Because it’s the kind of guy I am, I want to come clean and admit publicly that I was wrong when I identified the dongle-doos on this tree (picture above) as lichen.
The Old Fart (my dad) was/is correct. I was wrong.
It is a fungi or mushroom.
Imagine that, a person admitting that the evidence at hand shows that the mind must be changed. Wow.
Score one for the Old Fart.
Actually, bracket, or shelf, fungi are not mushrooms.
They do not contain a central stem and have pores rather than gills.
They, along with mushrooms, belong to the phyla Basidiomycota. All mushrooms are Basidiomycota but not all Basidiomycota are mushrooms.
So, strictly speaking neither of you were correct except that he was in the relative neighborhood.
http://herbarium.usu.edu/fungi/funfacts/shelffungi.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket_fungus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basidiomycota
Dammit, Steve, where were you all those days after I posted the original image?
I’m mad!
But thanks. I am pretty sure I was the one who determined it was a fungi after looking it up again today.
So score a little one for the Young Fart.
So many fungi, so little time.
I was busy doing nothing. It’s hard but someone has to do it.
If it weren’t for Google, I would have never known the specifics either. My mycology knowledge is slim to none except for the fact that I know mushrooms are either tasty, psychedelic, or lethal.
If Pope Honky pronounces something a lichen, then it is a lichen. End of motherfucking discussion.
If I were you I would have held my ground and let apologists argue about it for hundreds of years…