Spring Cup Fungi

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Welcome to Mushroom Monday for April 23, 2018 The cup fungi are a wide-spread and variable group of cup-shaped mushrooms. The most conspicuous ones are often colourful. There are hundreds of species with many being hard to identify and requiring microscopic features to determine species. No guide book attempts to cover them all so be happy if you can arrive at a genus name. Spores are produced on the inner surface of the cup and are often released in a visible cloud-like puff. Many are found on burned ground and … Continue reading →

Desert Puffballs on Stalks

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Welcome to Mushroom Monday for April 16, 2018 Puffballs are a specialized group of mushrooms that produce spheroidal fruitbodies. They belong to a group called Gastromycetes meaning “stomach fungi.” In this group, spores are produced internally in sacs that are generally more-or-less oval. Spores are not forcibly discharged as in the gilled mushrooms, but instead the outer membranes (the peridium) open with pores, or by disintegrating, and the powdery spores are released by wind, or the impact of rain or animals stepping on them. They are called puffballs because clouds … Continue reading →

Dallas-Barnhartvale Nature Park

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Hank and I went to the Dallas-Barnhartvale Nature Park today. In the restored wetland, this elderberry is unfurling. The delicate green ball, cradled by purple leaves, will later differentiate into hundreds of creamy-white flowers. And these flowers will eventually develop into berries for black bears to eat. (And! those purple leaves will turn green soon.)

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Barnes Lake Trails with Hank

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Hank & I have been getting to know the Barnes Lake Trails. Yesterday, we arrived during light showers, and as the sun came and went, I photographed sagebrush galls while Hank did whatever he likes to do. Near the lake, I came across an excited Say’s phoebe on top of a Douglas-fir.

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Nature Hike After Garbage Collection

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Following the third annual Lac Dubois garbage collection on April 8, Frank Ritcey led a group of 19 energized naturalists on a hike in the Dewdrop Range. Here is some of what we saw and learned. More information about the Xanthoria lichen that grows on nutrient enriched substrates can be found here.

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