Crypsis

Crypsis (my new word for the day) means hiding and is used to refer to the camouflage employed by certain plants and animals to avoid predation by blending into the background. It might seem hard to apply this to the outstanding mushroom above but I will only mention that it is one a clump of about 75 big fat mushrooms that have been growing in plain sight for some time only a few steps off the West Bay Walkway. Despite my eagle-eyed pursuit of fungi, these guys passed unnoticed for a week or more because they are precisely the same color as autumn's fallen leaves and their clump, at a glance from above, just looks like a pile of leaves.

Orange Jelly

Probably most of us have noticed this fungus at some time because of its bright orange color. It appears there are a couple of kinds of fungi that look like this, mostly differentiated by what kind of rotting wood they grow on. Since I don't know what kind of host this particular fungus is on, I will not try to identify it beyond offering the two possibilities: It's a member of either the Tremella or Dacromyces genera. Here's a link to a site written by a more knowledgeable blogger than myself, that identifies a very similar orange blob as Dacromyces palmatus. I highly recommend the aforementioned blog, "Island Nature," for anyone interested in our local flora and fauna. It's very well written, interesting and informative. Just lightly browsing through it this morning has taught me a lot, including the name of a mystery fungus earlier featured here. Good photos, too!

Mushrooms

I decided that rather than share my lame guesses as to the id of the various mushrooms I encounter I will just leave them nameless until I locate a good, easy-to-use field guide and can feel a little more confident of my identification. This group was one of several having a slow feast on a huge fallen tree out at Thetis Lake Regional Park.

Mycena Genus

I spent some time yesterday looking for a field guide for fungi, unsuccessfully. This morning I decided to see what resources are available online. I finally settled on a database program called "Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest." Fumbling my way through that I came up with a tentative id for the above mushrooms as members of the genus Mycena. I Googled that and checked out the images until I found one that matched and decided to call it quits for this time around. I suspect my identification of fungi will never be more than approximate or hopeful. There are many, many different kinds and often, precise identification involves spore prints and other activities that I prefer to avoid. That, however, is not going to stop me from mushrooming (defined by Mykoweb as "the pursuit of mushrooms") and continuing to try to identify what I find. I will welcome any suggestions.

Wonderful

After yesterday's promise to try to identify the plants in my photos, I have to confess I have been unable to find out what this mushroom is called. I need to find some good field guides so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. As for the moss, I'm pretty sure we're looking at a species (one of the 350 or so) of sphagnum.

Mosses and....

I selected today's pair of rather junky photos to illustrate something I'm just beginning to realize: I usually ignore anything I don't "know" and since I don't "know" most of what's in the environment, I generally ignore most of what I see. I originally selected the photo above in order to write a little about moss because the forest around Thetis Lake is luxuriously coated with mosses. (When I took the photo I was thinking only about the stream, surrounded by some green and brown areas....) The closer I looked at that big glob of moss the more I realized that there were actually three or four different kinds of moss growing there, not just one moss. When I started to look more closely at some of the other photos I'd taken that day, like the one to the right, I realized it's not just a photo of some orange mushrooms. There are at least three kinds of moss, a green slimy fungus and four or more different kinds of lichen. Some, like the strange coral-like lichen in the upper right corner are even more interesting than the subject of the photo - that dramatic pair of orange mushrooms. So, while I can't promise to identify everything I photograph from now on, I'm going to try, since it is a good way of beginning to see clearly. How many of the plants in today's photos can you identify?

Celadon in Nature

I took the photo above because the mushroom blooming here among the lichen is the smallest I've ever seen. This photo was taken using a 50mm lens and an extension tube, which gives considerable magnification. The cap of this mushroom is about the size of the head of a pin. Below are some old friends amongst the lichen family. They are probably Pixie Cup or False Pixie Cup (Cladonia chlorophaea). Click here to visit a good page on some common lichens and mosses. One of many reasons I love lichens is their wonderful and unusual colors. Looking at today's (and yesterday's) photos reminded me suddenly of that subtle, pale green celadon glaze found on ancient chinese porcelain. Now I know why that color looks so natural and true.

The Daily Fungus

I've fallen in love with fungi. They are such wonderful subjects - they are practically infinitely varied (about 1.5 million species); they come in all sorts of interesting colors, shapes and sizes; they stay nice and still and generally grow where the light is soft. What more could a photographer ask? What's more, they are a very weird and interesting life form. The more I find out about them the more they fascinate me. Wikipedia has a good article on fungi and is also host to the Fungi Portal with loads more information.

Crème Brulée

Maybe I'm just hungry this morning but the cap of this mushroom looks to me like some kind of delicious little cake topped with crème brulée or maybe carmelized sugar or... maybe crème brulée drizzled with carmelized sugar. (This probably means it's time to crawl directly to the emergency sugar stash....)

About Fungi

I almost always identify birds, animals and flowering plants that I photograph for this blog. Mosses and lichens and fungi however, are usually not identified. However, I will here share a bit of information about fungi that I have just learned from Wikipedia. Fungi are a "kingdom" meaning they are distinct from the other "kingdoms", animals and plants. One of the characteristics that differentiates them from plants is that their cell walls are made of chitin rather than cellulose. The kingdom contains about 1.5 million species of which only about 5% have been categorized. This makes me feel better about not being able to identify the various fungi I photograph. The fungus above was photographed recently in Goldstream Park near Victoria.

Trio

Like I said a few days ago, it's mushroom season.

Mmmmmmm

Another Spring

This photo so full of rich greens can serve as a suitable introduction to the next few days' posts. It's from a trip out to Goldstream Park last Friday when I realized that autumn in the rain forest here is very like spring in the incredible burgeoning of plant life. The mosses and lichens of course are thriving in the cool wetness much more than during summer's dry heat. But it is really the mushrooms, molds and other fungi that that caught my attention recently. They're popping up everywhere in all sorts of brilliant colors and odd shapes. Those in the photo below may serve as an example. Anyone know what they are? (*see note below)December 11, 2010: While browsing through an excellent local nature blog, "Island Nature" about nature on Vancouver Island, I came across a short article about this fungus. It's called Carbon Antlers or Candlesnuff Fungus (Xylaria hypoxylon).

Selective Focus

One way to deal with the overwhelming biomass of the rain forest is to focus down. As usual, I always try to get everything into one picture and I really have to think in order to stop and look at the distinct parts that make up the big picture. Above, instead of everything (see yesterday's pics), I managed to get it down to two items, mushrooms and moss. This is much more peaceful.