The Joe Stick

Day 354: Four years ago, my botany partner Joe posted a photo of a blue-green fungus he had found in the watershed where he worked. We identified it as Chlorociboria aeruginascens, and at the time, I remarked that it was something I'd always wanted to see in person. A few weeks later, he showed up on my doorstep with a stick which was lightly encrusted with a blue film. "It doesn't look like much now. I think it dried out after I collected it," he told me. Given the habitat he reported in the area where he found it, I selected a spot for it in my front flower bed which offered similar conditions. Summer came and went, and a few weeks after the autumn rains had returned, I checked on the "Joe Stick" and was pleased to see it had sprouted cute little aqua blue cups. It has fruited every year since then, although the flush of fungal growth seems to be diminishing with each cycle. Still, I'm happy to have kept it going this long as one of my oddest horticultural projects.