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.
Saturday, May 1, 2021
Mac Is Back!
Day 200: I've been checking every few days for the last two weeks. Mac is back! My "pet" Corallorhiza maculata in the back yard is all of an inch tall. So far, only one stem has poked through the ground, but I'm hoping for more with good reason: I believe I may have identified this particular plant's mycorrhizal associate. C. maculata is a mycoheterotroph, and as such is a bit less discriminating than some of the rarer species. It associates with a wider range of fungi, as opposed to C. trifida or C. striata which are more specific in their partnerships. My Mac may be working in tandem with Ramaria acrisiccescens, a common coral fungus which goes by the unlovely common name of "Blah Coral." Last fall, several lines of R. acrisiccescens fruited in her immediate vicinity along the shadowy edge of my wooded strip. Given the abundance of the fungus, Mac may be able to start a family of her own.
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