The Marvelous in Nature

Fungal growths

So, the long-awaited post on fungi. As I mentioned a few days ago, while out hiking the woods on our numerous excursions to the park I encountered quite a number of interesting fungus species. I dutifully took photos of everything, making sure I got a nice clear photo (as best as I could, anyway, given the low light conditions), checked the underside when I remembered to, and then came home to try to identify them.

It didn’t take me long to realize just how unhelpful a photo can be for many mushroom species. There are several that are very distinct and easy to recognize, of course, such as the above. The bright colour of the cap, covered in white spots, makes it an Amanita sp., but how to tell Amanita muscaria from Amanita flavoconia? I think this is the former, also known as Fly Agaric, which is supposed to be very common. There are different colour varieties, yellow, orange-red and bright red, with the latter being absent around the Great Lakes, but common in the west. A few species of Amanita are edible, but this brightly coloured one is poisonous. They contain amatoxins, a group that can destroy liver and kidney function in even the tiniest quantities, resulting in a relatively quick and painful death.

If I’m correct in my ID, this is another poisonous mushroom, Scleroderma sp., probably S. areolatum. This large, globular puffball was found growing on a ravine slope. The puffballs, at least the mushrooms I think of as puffballs, are spherical masses, lacking a stem and growing right on the ground. Growing up, there were Giant Puffballs in the woods behind my parents’ house, but I haven’t seen them for years. I thought they were the coolest things. I’m not sure if they get their name because they’re all puffed up and swollen, or because when you poke them (or they’re hit by falling raindrops, twigs, or other items) they release a big puff of spores, but either way, they’re unusual.

There are actually edible puffballs, and this is one of them (as is the Giant Puffball). Although much tinier than the previous species, no more than an inch or two, they function in much the same manner to release their spores, except that there is a pore at the top that the spores are released through. This species is Pear-shaped Puffball, Lycoperdon pyriforme. According to the Lone Pine field guide, this is the most common puffball species in the northeast, though this is the first time I’ve encountered it. It characteristically fruits in dense clusters on rotting wood; the ones I found were at the base of a tree, so I wonder what that says about the tree. The guide notes, “Edible, but lacks flavour.”

I believe these are White Pine Boletes, Suillus americanus. The boletes are a group halfway between the stalked, gilled mushrooms and the pored bracket fungi – they have a stalk and cap but have pores like bracket fungi. As the name suggests, this species is usually found fruiting in the soil under White Pines. There were certainly a few of them in the area, though I can’t recall now if I specifically found this one at the foot of a White Pine or not. It’s listed as edible.

My best guess on this one is that it’s Russula paludosa. This is where I realized how much easier it would be to identify these mushrooms in the field, with the book in hand, or otherwise by bringing a sample back. First, I’m not completely certain about the underside, though I think it’s gilled. Second, the genus Russula has the characteristic of brittle gills, instead of the spongey texture I tend to associate with mushrooms. It’s hard to run your finger along the gills in a photo to see if they break, though. I suppose part of my problem is that I don’t like the idea of breaking or picking something unnecessarily, so if I can check the underside without doing so I will, and if I can’t then I don’t tend to check. The cap on this one has been munched on by something, which didn’t help with trying to narrow down an ID, either. This species is supposed to be widespread and common, though, usually in moist soil under conifers, which would fit the bill.

Two species in this photo, both tricky to identify without the specimens in hand, but I think they’re Funnel Clitocybe, Clitocybe gibba, and Vermilion Waxcap, Hygrocybe miniata. A lot of narrowing down the potential species for a mushroom depends on the colour of the spores, which is generally determined by taking the mushroom cap, sitting it on a piece of white paper for a few hours to allow some of the spores to be released and fall onto the paper, and then looking at the “spore print” that’s left when you pick the cap up again. Since I don’t have that luxury, I do the best I can with visual IDs and comparing habitat info. I’m fairly certain about the waxcap, but the clitocybe (or whatever it is) could easily be misidentified. Both species are listed as fairly common, so I figure my chances are good…

This one, Marasmius capillaris, was a slightly easier identification because of the daintiness of the mushrooms. There are really only two groups that produce such tiny caps on thin, delicate stems: Marasmius sp. and Mycena sp. (the latter of which I mentioned back in the winter). The ID for this species was aided by the fact that there was a photo in the Lone Pine book that almost exactly resembled my photo, right down to the leaf litter the mushrooms were growing out of. Also widspread and relatively common, it apparently comes up quickly in periods of extended rain, but will shrivel quickly so is often missed.

And finally, what I thought would be the easiest ID but turned out not to be. This is obviously a tooth fungus of some sort, much like the Shelving Tooth of this post, but growing in a clump instead of as a stalked mushroom or bracket. Easy, right? There’s only a few such species listed in the book. However, none of them seemed to match quite right. I’m thinking it’s maybe not shown, but could be a member of the genus Hericium. These fruit in clumps on the sides of logs or snags, and both the ones listed in the guide are indicated to be widespread and fairly common. Also edible, though I’m not sure how you’d fry this one up.

Edit: Jennifer (see below) just wrote about Hericium; based on her post I think this might be H. erinaceus.

For more neat fungi check out the stuff Jennifer of A Passion for Nature found on a walk back in August. Perhaps I just wasn’t paying close enough attention, but I sure haven’t seen anything that colourful around here!

Today at Kingsford

I had plans to post about fungi today. Not going to happen, but hopefully tomorrow. My sister was up to visit this weekend, which was really nice, I haven’t seen her in a couple months, since well before we moved out here. She left early afternoon, and I spent the rest of the afternoon watching one of the football games. When the game ended, Blackburnian suggested we boat over to the park to take Raven for a hike, so we bundled everyone up and headed out.

The outing didn’t go quite as planned; I was supposed to take the trail around and meet up with Blackburnian further down along the shore, but I hadn’t paid close attention to the map before we left, and the trail didn’t do what I was expecting it to. Since I didn’t know how far I’d have to go or how long it would take me to finally get over to the trail I was meeting Blackburnian on, and I didn’t want to get lost, I decided best would be to turn around and head back to the shore where we’d been dropped off. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to communicate this to Blackburnian, so he was waiting for us at the rendezvous point, and when we didn’t show, started hiking up and down the trail there assuming we got lost (hopefully, as that was best-case scenario). Eventually he did return to the boat and found Raven and I sitting out on the rocks, so it all worked out, but it was dark by the time we returned home. As Blackburnian said when he finally found us, that won’t happen again.

In addition to some more interesting fungi I found while we were wandering around trying to figure out how to navigate the trail system, I was also admiring the start of the fall colours. We’re still not quite at peak here, that’ll probably be next weekend, or possibly even the following. But there’s lots that’s starting to show vibrant colour changes. The most striking were the above Virginia Creeper, brilliant red against the aqua lichen and green moss growing on the rock, and the small swamp below, with the yellow ferns and red-orange maple set against the bright green of the pondweed on the water.

I’ve noticed both of these (Virginia Creeper and swamp-dwelling individuals) have been among the first to change colour. I’m not sure why the creeper changes colour first, but I think the water cools the roots of the trees in the swamp sooner than those of upland trees, stimulating the earlier colour change (similarly, trees that are at the edge of the forest, or that poke out through the canopy are exposed to cooling winds and are more likely to change before their sheltered neighbours).

Today at Kingsford

Well, actually Thursday at Kingsford. When I took Raven out for a second walk in the park the next day, we took a different route, one that hugged the lakeshore, as much as it’s possible to hug the shore with steep ridges and valleys. For the most part, the ridges ran parallel to the shore, so it was easy enough to walk along the top without too much up-and-down effort.

It was while walking along here that I came across this on the forest floor; a turtle shell, long vacant of its owner. It was upturned, belly-up, nestled in the detritus of the forest floor. A few of the scutes, the hard material that covers the bony shell, were still attached in places. The scutes are made of keratin, much like our fingernails are. In theory, it may have been possible to identify the owner’s species with the help of these scutes, but there weren’t enough of them, and what was there wasn’t distinct enough, to be able to discern any pattern.

The plastron, the “belly” part of the shell, was still loosely attached when I picked it up and started carrying it home, but as I was trying to maneuver myself and a dog into a boat, I inadvertently applied a bit too much pressure to it and it popped in, separating cleanly at the “seams”, the points where the individual bone plates had grown together. It was only after I got it home that I noticed the upper shell itself was cracked, and it was only today as I sat down to write this, amazingly, that I noticed a huge gaping hole in the side of the shell. I can’t tell if this hole was created posthumously or was itself the cause of the turtle’s death, but it kind of looks like holes created by a bird with a sharp beak. The front of the plastron is also broken off, perhaps also an indication of predation.

Interestingly, removing the plastron makes it much easier to examine the inside of the shell, and you can see the backbone, fused to the shell, running its length. The shell itself is really just modified ribs, broadened and fused together to form a continuous surface. The plastron is the equivalent of our sternum, again modified to provide bony armor for the turtle’s underside. As such, it’s impossible to remove a turtle from its shell, the way you could remove a hermit crab from its shell – it would be like trying to remove us from our ribcage.

A walk in the woods

We had an unexpected guest yesterday, so I ended up not getting a chance to post about the walk in the park. I’d actually just got back from a return trip yesterday, where Raven and I walked another part of it, to find we had a visitor. The last couple of days have been so nice, warm enough for short sleeves but not so warm you’re dying. It just seemed a shame not to take advantage of that. Today was cool and rainy, so I’m glad I went out again when I did.

Round trip, we probably walked just over two kilometers (1.2 miles). On a straight and level road that wouldn’t be all that far, but the terrain in the park is far from straight and level. Little mini valleys cut through the granite to create ridges and plateaus. The plateaus are no problem to hike, but the ridges and valleys give you a bit of a workout. Raven outdid both Blackburnian and I; she was still charging onwards even at the end of the hike. She absolutely loved the outing. We let her off-leash in her harness, but she never strayed far from us, no further than her extendable leash would have let her go anyway. And this way, no wraps around trees!

We had no map, no compass, no GPS, and no particular destination in mind. We hiked out towards a promising-looking ridge, and upon cresting that, set our sights on the next. We headed approximately east, but followed the landforms and the suggestion of interesting sights beyond the next valley. There are no trails in this section of the park; in fact, given the size of the park, it’s relatively trail-poor. There’s only one trail that’s somewhat easy for us to reach from our lake, and it’s through a campground at the far north end, some 3 km (1.9 miles) away by boat. Not long after moving in, we had stopped by the park office to pick up some maps and get information on the area. We spoke to one of the staff, who indicated that walk-in access to the park is free, and you’re welcome to just dock your boat on the shore and hike in. So we felt no reservations about doing so.

So we boated directly across the lake, and docked the boat on a narrow gravel beach where the land sloped gently upwards into the park. It’s been a long time since I explored an area without being confined to a trail, or knowing what’s coming next. Everything was new, interesting, and different. There are an interesting array of habitats within the park. From the shore it looks like fairly uniform mixed forest. In fact, when you start hiking in, it turns out to be primarily deciduous, at least the sections we walked through. There were a number of more open areas that resembled oak savannah, though I don’t know if they had quite the combination of characteristics to qualify as such.

There were also a few low, wet areas that were obviously flooded at certain times of year, but not currently. Fallen logs, soft and decaying, were covered with moss and ferns. The area had a very lush, green appearance because of the ferny understory. For some reason, most of the areas we walked through had a sparse understory. It wasn’t that the understory was absent, just that it was thin. There were small saplings and a few little shrubs, patchy wildflowers and vines, but generally it was pretty easy walking. I know deer inhabit the park, so it may be that they keep the understory thinned out. Or, it may be something to do with the soil, or some other factor.

Our “final destination” (meaning, the point where we decided it was getting on, and we were getting tired, and we should start heading back) turned out to be a large, old swampy wetland. It looked like it may once have been a river, but had been dammed by a beaver and flooded, killing the resident trees. This would have happened quite a while ago, as most of the trees were long dead and fallen. Also, the water level wasn’t maintained, and while it appeared the water was probably high enough to form a continuous lake in the spring, by this time in the fall it had dropped substantially, such that the ground was mostly moist with just small patches of water remaining.

Raven, eager to continue on, bounced down and into the wet area to check it out. She paused when it was apparent we weren’t following. She was very good about not getting carried away, and coming back to us when called, with the exception of one spot where her nose found something deliciously intriguing buried in the soil, and she required some coaxing to be drawn away from it (even then, it didn’t come down to us going and picking her up, which I was worried about having to do during the hike – either to take her away from something, or to carry her back when she got tired).

You comin’, slowpokes?

During the hike we came across lots of things that grabbed my interest. I didn’t spend a lot of time paused to examine anything, but did snap photos of the stuff that really caught my eye. One was this frog. I’ve encountered a number of different species of frog here, the most numerous at our house being Leopard Frogs. In the forest, during the hike, the most common were Wood Frogs, I must have seen at least half a dozen of them. But as we came down to the edge of the water, in the muddy wet bits, Blackburnian spotted this guy. I spent a lot of time debating its identification. The tight, squareish nature of the spots on its back and sides made me think Pickerel Frog (a species I admittedly have never seen), while the fact that there were three rows of spots on the back wasn’t a feature of this species. Apparently the definitive feature is bright yellow to the underside of the legs of a Pickerel Frog, but I didn’t think to pick it up. I’m thinking now it might just be a very dark, strongly-marked Leopard, but it may remain a mystery.

I loved these ferns, which were abundant thoughout the park. The circlet of leaflets recalled to me a crown, and I thought perhaps it would be named something reflecting that, but the species is Northern Maidenhair, Adiantum pedatum. I don’t recall seeing them at my parents’, or in that region of Ontario, but it’s very widespread, occurring from coast to coast, and from as far north as Alaska and Labrador down to southern California and Georgia.

Most of what I was paying attention to, though, was fungus, which will be the subject of the next post. As we turned for home, the sun’s rays started slanting low and golden, illuminating the trees with rich light. A forest that is cool and shady during the day, when the sun is shining straight down on the canopy, becomes aglow as the sun sinks toward the horizon.

Our house, at the end of the day, as viewed from the park; the only reason I knew I was looking toward our house was because of the barely discernible pale line created by the trunk of the big aspen at the shore. There’s so much more to explore, but it will have to wait for another day. Home beckons, with cold drinks and a place to put your feet up.

Buried seashells

This afternoon, Blackburnian suggested we take Raven across the lake to the park and do some exploratory hiking. I thought this was a great idea, so we bundled Raven into her harness, hiked down to the boat (now no longer docked at the dock because the water level has gone down so much from dam control that the dock is surrounded by mud), and boated across to the park.

We had a great hike. Surprisingly, this is the first time I’ve gone over and hiked around myself, though Blackburnian’s been there a few times. For whatever reason, I’d just never made it, other things had come up. So it was nice to see a bit of the park interior. I’ll elaborate more on the hike tomorrow.

One of the things we came across while hiking, though, was this underground paper wasp nest. Aside from the fact that it was a wasp nest built of paper underground, we really had no idea what it was. So I snapped a few photos, with the intention of looking it up when we got home. The wasps were totally unconcerned with us being there, and me nosing up to the mouth of the burrow it was set in so that I could take photos. They just went about their business, popping inside the entryways in the paper, one or two flying away while I squatted there.

I was surprised to find, when I got home, that this was the nest of Eastern Yellowjackets (Vespula maculifrons). I don’t know that I’ve ever consciously looked at a yellowjacket and thought, “that’s a yellowjacket,” so I’m not sure what I was expecting. Something more yellow, maybe. I knew yellowjackets primarily nest underground, but for some reason this didn’t twig with me. Plus, yellowjackets have a ferocious reputation, and here these were, apparently unconcerned. Nevertheless, the wasps in this burrow were Vespula.

Yellowjackets as a group build paper nests using wood and plant fibers mixed with saliva. They can make some beautiful patterns in the paper they create, scalloped sea-shells of grays and whites. They’re a social species, like many of the Hymenoptera, with a single reproductive queen cared for by many female worker offspring. Although the larvae are fed bits of chewed-up insects, the adults themselves feed on nectar from flowers. They’re also not opposed to visiting sugary drinks, and are probably the wasps most commonly seen crawling into pop cans.

The colonies never survive the winter, despite being nestled underground. In the fall, male drones and young queens are produced from the colony, and these then fly away to mate. In the photo above you can see three workers, the slightly smaller ones with more yellow, and one male, the slightly larger one with more black, on the left. The new queens will mate with the males; the males will then die, while the queens find a safe place to hole up for the winter. They are the only ones to survive. Come spring, they find themselves an abandoned burrow, and start up a new colony. They begin from scratch, and the first brood is completely cared for by only the queen. Once she’s raised a few workers, she settles in to her role as egg-layer, and her daughters run the nest. By the end of the summer the nest may hold up to 5,000 individuals.

Interestingly, all workers are females because they are diploid – having two sets of chromosomes. Males are created through the laying of unfertilized eggs (the queen, who holds the sperm from her mating the previous fall in a storage chamber in her abdomen and doles it out according to the gender of offspring needed), and are therefore haploid – have just one set of chromosomes. New queens are diploid females that are fed a special concoction (in honeybees, called “royal jelly”) that promotes her development into a reproductive individual.

I gather the workers will sting if provoked, and their sting can be acutely painful. However, probably just walking by won’t provoke them. On the other hand, the juicy, tender larvae are a favourite delicacy of bears, skunks and others, who will endure the workers’ stings for the treat. As long as you’re not digging in to the nest for a snack you’re probably fine.

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