365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Tee Garden
Day 49: We all know that the game of golf originated in Scotland, right? And Scotland is very like the Pacific Northwest in climate, i.e., damp and rather grey. Although I don't know this for a fact, I would guess that it has an abundance of lichens, and surely among them you could find a number of representatives of the Cladonias. It's a whimsical thought to be sure, but imagine if you will a kilted clansman about to place his leathern ball on the green. His head turns. He's spotted a narrow stalk topped with a cup-shaped form of the exact size to hold the ball. History is made as our redoubtable Scot nestles his gamepiece into the bowl of a specimen of Cladonia fimbriata where it is held securely until he pelts it mightily with his blackthorn and sends it sailing into a gorse thicket, there to remain until the final days of Planet Earth.
I found the mother of all tee gardens on my Nisqually Land Trust beat today. I'd stopped by Ohop Valley to check on the trees we planted a few weeks ago and was delighted to see that a second crew had been in to place protective plastic sleeves around each one. A piece of rotten fence drew my attention, and when I looked up from the single specimen I had just photographed growing on its length, I noticed another rail, its sunward vertical side bearing hundreds of C. fimibriata podetia. I removed one single example to bring home in order to confirm my identification (inset shows the finely farinose soredia), and although it was spongy at the time I picked it, two hours later it had dried to the point that it felt wooden. It was still too flexible to be used as a golf tee but rigid enough to inspire speculation as to the origin of the device. Aye, an' 'tis not so unreasonable to think, eh?
Labels:
Cladonia,
Cladonia fimbriata,
golf,
golf tees,
lichen,
microscopy,
Nisqually Land Trust,
Ohop Valley,
soredia
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