Arctium Sp.

Day 334: "How'd we miss that on the way up?" I asked. Arnie replied, "Burr, Cocklebur...that's the common name I know it by. You know weeds..." I said, "Burdock. Hang on..." Great digging in the mental archives was causing smoke to come out my ears. "Arctium!" I said at last. "Arctium...it's in there somewhere" (tapping my head) "Arctium...lappa. Arctium minor? Minus? There's two of them, and they're hard to tell apart." At that point, Arnie wrapped his hands around the base, and I could tell he was getting ready to take decisive action. "And they've got a tap root that goes all the way to China!" I warned. There was a loud snap, and Arnie was left holding three stalks which had broken off from the root right at ground level. "Um...the other one is bigger," I pointed at the second plant. He dug down an inch in the soil to reveal where someone had previously cut a 3/4" stem. New growth was coming out from just below the cut. "They're godawful hard to get rid of," I elaborated. "Got one on my Land Trust property that's about ten feet tall." Arnie broke the stems to inhibit photosynthesis, if nothing else, but neither of us had anything to bag them in, so we wound up leaving them behind. Sometimes seeds continue to develop even after the stalk has been cut, but that appeared to be our only option. My trouser pockets were already full of chanterelles, and there are some sacrifices I'm simply not willing to make. Nor was I particularly keen on hiking with burdock burrs in my britches! As it turned out, my pictures aren't good enough to tell if the petioles have ridges, so whether this is Arctium lappa or Arctium minus, I can't say. "Arctium sp." will have to do.

Memories and Mushrooms

Day 333: I seldom think to take pictures of human subjects, and now I'm kicking myself because Merry got to meet a new uncle yesterday, a friend I have not seen for years. Arnie was up from southern Oregon visiting family, and took a day out to make a long detour to spend time with me. The possibility of rain had led us both to think that we wouldn't be able to get in the hike we'd hoped to take, but by noon, the weather looked good enough to chance it. En route to Big Bridge, we picked a handful of early chanterelles, reminding me of one of the last times I'd gone hiking with Arnie in the Park before he retired. We got to Big Bridge, decided to go on a little further, and as these things go when you have two people who don't like to file flight plans, we thought we'd make a loop out of the trip and headed up another trail, hoping to make a connection. As it turned out, the connector was so overgrown that we missed it and kept going, climbing instead of descending, and about three miles in, we both decided that going back was preferable to going on when we had no idea where we might end up. We laughed over our old Park escapades in pursuit of rare and elusive plants: Arnie losing the route, me getting stuck in a bog, and others. It seemed like every time we went out in the field together, there was some Event-with-a-capital-E. Good memories, those! In the end, we covered about six miles, each of us pointing out plants and challenging the other one to remember the names (neither of us is as young as we used to be). We got back to the house, solved several of the world's and the Park's problems vicariously, and Merry got to spend more time with his new uncle. It wasn't until after Arnie left that I realized we hadn't eaten all day! I had a quick bowl of yogurt before going to bed, worn out in a good way and happier than I've been in months.

All-der Smilie

Day 332: Forgive the brevity! This smilie group of alder cones represents how I feel after a long day with a good friend who I haven't seen in years. I'll talk more about our adventures tomorrow!

Coprinus Petersonii, Peterson's Inky-cap

Day 98: My good friend and mentor Arnie Peterson presented me with the challenge of finding a new species of Coprinus, and although I wasn't quite certain how to go about doing so, fortune favoured me with one in my own back yard. It is customary that when someone discovers a new species and describes it scientifically, they have the privilege of naming it once it has been assigned to the proper genus. I have chosen to honour Arnie by calling this unique fungus Coprinus petersonii, or Peterson's Inky-cap. The scientific description is as follows:

Cap: 2.–2.5 cm in diameter, 4.5–6 cm tall; cylindrical with a rounded top when young, becoming scaly in age. Cap white, flecked with light brown, darker brown at the apex, deteriorating into fine grey-black strands at maturity. Surface tomentose.
Gills: Undistinguished, creamy white.
Odour: Reminiscent of damp wool.
Stipe: 1–1.5 cm wide, cylindrical and tapering only where it attaches to the cap. Surface tomentose. The stipe is solid and compact. An annulus may be present.
Spores: Scaly, 2.5–5 µm, black with an apical pore.
Geographical distribution: Known only from one location in western Washington.

Here, a bit of apology is in order to the several people who swallowed (hook, line, sinker and copy of "Angling Times") my post regarding Cantharellus lanafiltris a few days ago. I have been known to pull legs on occasion with bogus birds, fake frogs and counterfeit caterpillars, but never before without revealing in the last few sentences the deception. I neglected to do so with the Woolly Chanterelle. Those paired fungal specimens were, of course, needle-felted...as is this Coprinus which, I believe, fulfills Arnie's true challenge: to create an Inky-cap with wool.

A Landmark Weed

Day 326: They say that desperate times call for desperate measures, and so it was that I pulled Hitchcock off the shelf after an hour of browsing through pretty pictures of plants in the hope of getting lucky. I had a problem. The cause of my consternation was a weed, and therefore unlikely to appear in any field guide with "wildflower" in the title. Nor could I find it in any of my customary sources for descriptions of invasives; therefore it was probably a "weed of no concern" despite its abundance on an island in the middle of the Tilton River. As such, it had issued a challenge in the character of its three-fingered glove, and the geas was upon me to name it. There was no other option but Hitchcock in such a desperate time.

Now you might be wondering at my hesitance to dive into a dichotomous key. I am ashamed to admit that my past experience with keying out species runs rather backwards to the recommended procedure, working in reverse from a point where I can say, "Well, it can't be that." In this case, I had no such point of reference. The only thing I could say for certain about the mystery weed was that it belonged to the Fabaceae, the family of peas. That signature was in the morphology of its flower and in its distinctive leaf arrangement. I opened Hitchcock to "Fabaceae" and settled in for the siege. Fortunately, my photos had captured all the necessary details, and within a substantially shorter time than I'd expected, I had identified Melilotus albus, aka "white sweet-clover." I was so proud of myself that I immediately shot an email off to Arnie to let him know that Hitchcock and I had finally made friends with each other. Arnie's congratulation came with a qualifier of which I am equally proud: "Now you're a real botanist." Inspired by a weed! Whodathunkit?

It Started With Sanicula

Day 241: Earlier this year while hiking in Rimrock County Park, I found some odd foliage I couldn't identify. I referred it to my two tame experts, Arnie and David Giblin at the Burke Herbarium. They both identified it as Sanicula crassicaulis, and left it to me to determine the subspecies (var. crassicaulis). David said, "And be sure you get pictures of the flowers when it blooms." That was my project for yesterday: find a bloomin' Sanicula. I think David must have been having a quiet little chuckle, knowing what was ahead of me. I hadn't gone far up the trail when I spotted the familiar leaf. A few tall stems rose above the foliage, terminating in what I took to be seed capsules. As I continued on, I was kicking myself for not having made the trip in late May, thinking that the petals had already dropped, but then noticed a tiny fleck of yellow on another inflorescence. "Hang on a mo'," I said aloud. "Is that the freakin' flower?" What I'd seen earlier were buds. A hand lens would have been nice to have at this particular juncture, but no one had warned me. I put my eye right down on the yellow bits and discovered that yes indeed, the Sanicle panicle displays a number of tiny corymbs, all in a space no larger than the pink of your thumbnail. I'm trying to work that into a poem to drop on David as my revenge.

Smith And Hooker

Day 228: Last summer, weeks after the blossoms had passed, Arnie and I were discussing the flora found on the Park's Tahoma Woods property (Park Headquarters), and I mentioned Prosartes hookerii. He checked his list and showed only P. smithii, so nothing would do but what I went on what I fully expected to be a wild goose chase to document both species. When in flower, it would have been a relatively easy task, noting the exposed/hidden stamens and the length of the tepals, but identifying the plants from foliage was another matter, especially since I thought I'd only seen smithii in a few isolated locations where Star-flowered Solomon's Seal also grew in profusion. The leaves and stems of both Fairy-bells and those of Star-flowered Solomon's Seal are very similar, so in essence, I would be hunting for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Were I to find smithii in one of the locations where I thought I might have seen it, I would need to examine the leaves to ascertain whether they were "glabrous to pubescent on upper surface, pubescent below" or "glabrous to glabrate except for the spreading, twisted marginal hairs." Needle in a haystack? Let's make that a four-inch piece of yellowish-tan string in a haystack instead. Okay, I'll cut to the chase: I found what I believed to be smithii in several spots, but without a flower to examine, I wasn't fully convinced. Yesterday, I had an opportunity to lay the mystery to rest while on a search for slime molds. Both Smith and Hooker were in bloom (left and right, respectively). I sent the photos off to Arnie as soon as I got home, and he wrote back saying, "Good work, Sherlock!"

Calypso Orchid, Calypso Bulbosa

Day 214: I can always count on Arnie to provide me with reading material on the subject of plants. He's very good at finding snippets of information in research papers I can't access, and comes up with answers (or theories, as the case may be) when I question him about a plant's individual ecology. He also occasionally forwards things he thinks might interest me (they always do), and this morning's contribution was timely. It covered an interesting aspect of Calypso bulbosa, and fits right in with the photo I had planned to use as the basis for today's post.

This lovely little plant is native to the area, although it isn't abundant by any means. It is pollinated by bumblebees, and it goes a long way to attract them. It does so by deceiving them, pretending to offer prizes it does not deliver. Its scent draws bumbles to it, and the hairs on its lower lip mimic easily accessible anthers. It also displays false "nectar spurs" (not visible in this photo). A bee, visiting the flower for the first time, winds up going away disappointed, then landing on another  Calypso where it again receives no reward. The Calypso has the advantage of the bee's unwitting cross-pollination service, but not for long. The trick only works until the bees wise up to it, i.e., it's only effective with newly emerged, uneducated bees. Botanists refer to this tactic as "cross-pollination by deception," and Calypso has it down to a science, little liar that she is.

Number 100

Day 156: It doesn't look like much...a few leaves, no pretty flower...but it is a milestone in my career as a plant photographer. Sanicula crassicaulis (Pacific Sanicle) is the 100th taxon I have submitted to the Burke Herbarium image gallery, i.e., the 100th species of plant, fungus and lichen over a total of 170 photographs under my name. I take no credit for identifying it from the foliage. I threw it at Arnie as soon as I got the photos onto the computer. Nor did I know it would be #100 when I knelt down beside and and said, "So who are you, guy? I don't remember ever seeing those leaves before." And I owe a special thank-you to Kevin for forgetting to put my pizza in the car with the rest of my groceries. If he hadn't forgotten, I wouldn't have had the excuse to go down to Eatonville to retrieve it from his fridge or been able to rationalize a hike in Rimrock County Park (undeveloped) with the logic, "Well, as long as I'm down there, I might as well check on the..." But wait! If I let that slip, it would spoil tomorrow's post. Suffice to say it was a good day, botanically speaking.

Update: not only was it my 100th species for the Herbarium gallery, it also seems to be the furthest east sighting of it in the county!

Recommended By Experts

Day 52: Day before yesterday, I received an early Christmas present in the mail with no clue as to the sender save for the return address of the bookseller, but that was a dead give-away. I immediately sat down and wrote Arnie a letter of thanks. The arrival of the book was remarkably timely; I had been eyeing the ads for it in Scientific American and was very close to ordering it for myself because...well, because you just can't go wrong when David Sibley is talking about birds. His expertise is only surpassed by that of the birds themselves and, such being the case, I thought I'd put it to the ultimate expert for final approval. A bribe of a few sunflower seeds was all it took. "What It's Like To Be A Bird" has the official Beak of Approval from Mr. Dee.

Queen Of Plants Without Chlorophyll

Day 284: About a week ago, I received an email from Arnie with the salutation, "Oh, queen of plants without chlorophyll," which was accompanied by a lovely photo of an Aphyllon species he'd found near Oregon Caves and a question about why he was seeing clumps of Castilleja at some points along the trail and Orthocarpus at others. I suggested that it might be because both plant genera are initial mycoheterotrophs (i.e., they require the assistance of a mycorrhiza to germinate), possibly even facultative mycoheterotrophs (ones which rely on a mycorrhizal "assist" even though they're capable of limited photosynthesis). Arnie likes to wind me up, and he's doing a fantastic job of it, keeping me posted almost daily on the mycoheterotrophs of southern Oregon. Damn, I wish I could take a road trip!

However, his salutation made me laugh, and also made me feel unashamedly proud of the fact that he turns to me when he has questions about mycoheterotrophic plants. In fact, it was my passion for mycoheterotrophs which inspired him to send me on a hunt for Cephalanthera austiniae, the Phantom Orchid. I think he thought it was a wild goose chase; I thought it was a snipe hunt, a way to keep me occupied and out of his hair for the rest of the season. We were both surprised when I got on the radio and announced breathlessly, "Arnie...Arnie...I'm kneeling beside two Phantoms!" as the tears streamed down my face.

That was several years ago. My botany partners and I have continued to monitor the site (the only place where Cephalanthera is known to occur in Mount Rainier National Park), and each year, we inventory Phantoms. With COVID hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles, Joe and Sharon have gone alone twice, and last Sunday, Joe reported a census of 19 to me. This morning, I was out the door before sunrise with GPS and camera in hand. I only found 17 of Joe's specimens, but I also noted several large banana slugs in the area. I think that may be a clue into why some Phantoms disappear within a day or two and others live out their life cycle to set seed. In fact, I noted one old stalk from last year, its pods hanging dry and empty. So why is the Phantom so rare? Let's turn back to the discussion I had with Arnie: it requires a specific mycorrhizal partnership. In fact, Cephalanthera is more selective than other mycoheterotrophic species. Some combination of factors allows its existence at this site. We know that it occurs in the presence of certain other vascular plants ("plant associations"), so I believe it's possible that the mycorrhiza is dependent on something in the decaying detritus of these plant associates. Ah, so many questions! But I do know this: Cephalanthera austiniae is the true Queen of plants without chlorophyll. I am simply one of her vassals.

Find Prosartes

Day 254: Now several weeks past its blooming period, the Fairybells are just one more green thing in the green, green sea of our forests. I had found Prosartes hookeri near this spot a month ago and, despite it being a common plant, photographed it and put the images in my files, little expecting to have to refer back to them at a later date. In another corner of the universe (Oregon), Arnie was working on the vascular plant list for the same area. We've been bouncing species and subspecies around for several days via email, hoping to refine the catalog. However, when it came to Prosartes, he had recorded one species during a survey he'd personally conducted, whereas my record showed another one entirely. Was one of us wrong in our identification, or were there in fact two different Fairybells at Tahoma Woods? I could recall having walked past some which I dismissed as "not fully open yet" when they were in bloom; could I have overlooked the second species, whose petals never curl back to expose the stamens? Yes, I thought I could have done, and equally, Arnie admitted that he might have given mine (which I was sure were hookeri) a perfunctory glance or missed them entirely. Thus it became my mission for the day to find a green needle in a vast green haystack. In the end, I located ten specimens in as many acres, and all of them along the trail were Prosartes smithii, i.e., the "other" Fairybells. Just to reassure myself that I hadn't made a mistake with the roadside plants I'd photographed, I also checked them on the way home. Yep, different Fairybells. The census has been amended to include both P. smithii and P. hookeri.

Pathfinder, Adenocaulon Bicolor

Day 225: Pathfinder is a plant familiar to hikers in the Pacific Northwest even if they don't know what it's called or why it earned that name. Also known as Trail Plant, Adenocaulon bicolor's leaves are green on the upper surface, but silvery-grey on the underside. The stems are quite resilient and flexible, and when something (human or animal) passes through a group of the plants, it is easy to see the route they took from the turned-over leaves. This much is common knowledge, but a larger question arises: what evolutionary advantage does this give the plant? I like to ask the hard questions, so I turned to Arnie first, and then went prowling in the depths of obscure research papers to see if I could find the answer. In so doing, I learned that Pathfinder is a "sun-fleck" species (a fact I had not known previously, and should have observed). It lives where illumination comes as brief packets of light which only penetrate the upper canopy sporadically throughout the day, the plant returned to shadow as the sun passes through its arc above the trees. The silvery underside is due to certain types of crystalline structures within the cells. These serve to back-scatter the light into the plant's internal cell layers, increasing its ability to photosynthesize. I was unable to locate information regarding what type of crystals these might be, although in some other silvery-blotched plants, the colouration is due to calcium oxalate, but nothing I read referred to it as being contained in Adenocaulon.

During my reading, Arnie had answered my email, and his response prompted me to share what I had discovered. He said, "The truthful answer is, 'I don’t know.'  I thought about making up a good story, but inspiration is letting me down this morning." I probably would have bought it, too. I mean, he is the expert.

Deliberate Obfuscation

Day 69: Obfuscate: to cloud or obscure; to cause confusion; to make difficult of comprehension or interpretation; to make unnecessarily complex; to throw into shadow or make difficult to see.

William Fraser Tolmie takes the prize. I've stayed in touch with Arnie, our former Plant Ecologist, since his retirement a year ago, and a few weeks back, he mentioned to me that he was working on a project which required transcription of some of Tolmie's letters and journals, copies of which he had obtained from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (London). He was finding them particularly difficult to read, so I asked him if he'd like me to take a look. I have some background in deciphering mid-19th Century handwriting, having transcribed something to the effect of 100,000 birding records for Patuxent Nature Center's Bird Phenology Program. Arnie sent me one of the "folios" and I zipped through the first page like a knife through hot butter. I thought, "This is going to be easy!" Then I turned to page two and began struggling through faded ink and stains, putting question marks wherever it was illegible. It didn't help that Tolmie had recorded many plant names in transliteration from "Tshinook" jargon; there was no hope for those, and even some of his Latin terminology was archaic and unreadable. I eventually finished the first folio to the best of my ability, and with a few notes and potential corrections, Arnie sent it off to Kew where it will become part of their archives. I've just finished a second folio, working with hard copies as well as digital in a variety of enhanced versions. It's tough going.

Neither Arnie nor I are looking forward to the dreaded "Folio 192," which is cross-written with text running both vertically and horizontally on the same page. To me, it looks more like a weaving draft than penmanship. In his search for clearer copies, Arnie discovered that Tolmie had written it in that manner in purposeful obfuscation, to make it difficult for anyone but his colleague and friend Hooker, long used to Tolmie's peculiarities, to decipher, not thinking in the least of the future generations who might wish to refer to it. Of course, Tolmie probably never expected to achieve any particular fame as a botanist, nor to become a household word in the annals of Pacific Northwest history, but you never know. Could anyone read my handwritten notes-to-self on Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae or on Cephalanthera austiniae? Sometimes I can't!

Mushroom Memories

Day 283: By and large, mushroom hunters are secretive people who defend their favourite locations with a wall of silence. Many of us prefer to go out alone, and some (myself included) have been known to lay a false trail by parking well away from the most productive spots and then hoofing it overland through terrain which might deter any local who happened to recognize our vehicles. Occasionally, though, we are moved to include a trusted friend in our pursuits, but only after a thorough vetting. I was introduced to a particularly productive patch of chanterelles by my fishing buddy's brother-in-law Eddie. The three of us picked it for a number of years until the bridge washed out, cutting off the only feasible access. When Uncle Eddie passed away, his mushroom basket came to me and although I now use it to hold wool when I'm spinning (preferring to keep my fungi hidden in a bag in my pack), its golden sheen is enhanced by a varnish of memories from the time I spent with Eddie and Sande in the woods. After the bridge was rebuilt, our chanterelle spot was found by commercial pickers as was my alternate location and, within a mere pair of years, they had depleted the sites beyond any hope of recovery. By then, however, I'd found another spot and had been judiciously picking my "one fry-up and a bowl of soup" in a manner which left the mycelium healthy.

Before he retired from his job as the Park's Plant Ecologist, my dear friend Arnie asked me if I'd take him 'shrooming. There would have been no person in whom I could have placed a greater trust, so I agreed. We gathered just enough chanterelles for our two households to have a meal apiece, leaving behind the buttons and older fruiting bodies to continue the cycle. Arnie moved to southern Oregon the following spring, and we've stayed in touch, sharing our botanical discoveries regularly. Yesterday, I received a gift from him: a luxuriously soft bamboo-viscose/cotton t-shirt imprinted with (you guessed it!) two gorgeous chanterelles.

Finding Rosy

Day 232: When Team Biota first started working with the Park's former Plant Ecologist, he tasked us with finding both rarities and plants which occurred in "non-Biek" locations, i.e., sites not listed in David Biek's "Flora of Mount Rainier National Park." We far outstripped his expectations, bringing him documentation of numerous species throughout the years of his tenure. Arnie is retired now, but Team Biota is still hard at work.

During an early-season survey last spring, we encountered a single specimen of Rosy Twisted-Stalk (Streptopus lanceolatus) and took appropriate photos, but both Joe and I failed to GPS-mark the coordinates because at the time, we didn't realize it was in an unrecorded spot. When we reported it to Arnie, we had to admit we'd both dismissed it as nothing special, so the following week, we went back, thinking we'd remember where we'd seen it. As things turned out, we spent the next several weeks combing the area for a flower, a leaf, a bitten-off stem...anything to prove that little Rosy wasn't a figment of our combined imaginations. We found nothing, not a trace, and 2018 concluded without evidence of the plant's presence, so as soon as the snow melted back from the site this year, we began searching anew. Today, we found our elusive prey and, with the gods of botany smiling benevolently on our diligence, we not only located our original specimen but a second, larger population as well.

Special Gifts, Special Friends

Day 63: I think Santa must have decided I've been nice this year because I can't believe he dispatched two pair of special elves to the wrong address, not when their gifts were so obviously meant for me. "Flowering Plants and Ferns of Mount Rainier" came from my Team Biota partners Joe and Sharon; "Flora of Mount Rainier National Park" and "How to Identify Mushrooms to Genus" were brought to me this afternoon by Arnie and his wife Sara. The two plant books are old, and are therefore a ticket to a fantastic ride through the taxonomic forests of yesteryear. The mushroom book is magnificently illustrated to guide students of mycology through the differentiating features of fungal genera, in detail most field guides lack. I have many hours of brain-work ahead of me here!

The Arnie Blanket

Day 44: It's close enough to the unavoidable moment for me to post this: Park Plant Ecologist and good friend Arnie is retiring, a fact which saddens me to no end. His wife is also hanging up her hat, so we're having a party for them on Thursday. This handwoven blanket will be my retirement gift to them. I also made a matching scarf for Sara, and Joe Dreimiller mounted photos of Team Biota's most memorable finds in a large frame. During his too-brief stint at Mount Rainier National Park, Arnie has been very supportive of me and of Team Biota. He has also helped me become a better scientist, teaching by example, gently correcting my errors, guiding my focus to the finer details of botany. We had some good days in the field (most of which wound up with me as the punch line when I sunk thigh-deep in mud or took a tumble into a bog), and I will forever be grateful for the hours he spent listening to me rave about a certain rare fungus, absorbing every word and then coming to me at some later date with printouts of research papers on the subject in the hopes of providing further insight into its special ecology. His support has meant the world to me, allowing me to "do science" on the Park's behalf. He will be missed by many people in the Park, but I think none quite so much as me.

Ah, yes, the blanket. It was woven as a double layer on a four-foot floor loom, and the design was based loosely on the famous "Hudson Bay" blankets of yesteryear. I used standard "fabric store" knitting worsted for warp and weft, and finished it with twisted fringe. I'm sure they'll enjoy it during chilly nights at Crater Lake where Arnie plans to continue working as a VOLUNTEER!

Musk Monkeyflower, Erythranthe Moschata

Day 253: The source of much taxonomic frustration earlier in the week, Musk Monkeyflower is one of those spots where Arnie (the Park's Plant Ecologist and my Natural Resources supervisor) plants his feet firmly in his era and refuses to budge. Maybe it's the euphony of the undulant m-sounds in "Mimulus," flowing off the tongue like sweet syrup, or perhaps it's the attraction of alliteration in Musk-Mimulus-Monkey. I cannot get him to say "Erythranthe" for all the tea in China and in a way, I can understand his reluctance. What I was not prepared to encounter was a refusal to acknowledge the greater family, Phrymaceae. Monkeyflowers are no longer part of the Scrophulariaceae and you'd think Arnie might be glad of an easier word to pronounce, but no, he stands firm in the outdated nomenclature despite my repeated assaults on his wall of resistance. It's a friendly engagement (or at least we haven't come to blows about it YET), and I'm still hoping to win him over with banter.

Erythranthe moschata is one of the smaller monkeys (although not nearly as tiny as E. breweri, whose little pink flower would fit in the diameter of a pencil eraser). It's notable for its somewhat viscid and densely hairy leaves and the absence of any vivid markings in the throat. It's regarded as "uncommon" in the Park, but may be found near seeps below 5500'. Like other monkeys (except the mammalian ones, of course), it enjoys having wet feet.

And Kidneys To Top It Off

Day 152: I'm not sure where to start relating today's events, so I think I'll begin with the photo. Ever since finding Fringed Kidney lichen following a windstorm several years ago, I've haunted the same spot, hoping that another specimen would have dropped from the upper canopy. I've been disappointed until today when I found one very small grouping. The largest of the apothecia wouldn't cover my thumbnail and the foliose portions are rather browned from harsh weather, but this is Nephroma helveticum, and now I think I know which tree it occupies. No, I am not thinking about climbing it.

When I arrived home from work, I had a surprise in my mailbox. Joe and Sharon, my partners in Team Biota, are hoping to light a fire under me with respect to dragonfly identification. To that end, they sent me James Walker's "Common Dragonflies and Damselflies of the Pacific Coast - A Life Size Field Guide." I have collected a few images of these insects over the years, but have not been able to identify more than a few. This book will definitely improve my skills.

However, the biggest event of the day left me speechless and very near to tears. For some time, I have wished I could afford to attend the lichen portions of the Northwest Scientific Association's annual conference, but I simply couldn't budget it. Today as I sat at my office computer crunching volunteer applications and answering Park emails, I recognized Arnie's voice at the door. He came into the office and leaned against a cluttered bookcase. "I have a question for you," he said. Expecting it to be something botanical and wondering how he thought I'd be any help if he didn't know, I said, "Yeah? What?" Without preamble asked, "How interested are you in the Northwest Scientific Association's lichen conference?" I told him I'd love to go, but that it wasn't within my means. "What would you say if I said I'd send you to it?" he replied.

For a second, I was speechless. Then I said, "Surely there's somebody else who would benefit more from your budget than me!" He said, "You let me decide that." After some flabbergasted sputtering on my end, he continued, "Would you want to attend all four days or just pick a topic which interests you?" We dragged up the conference program and I determined that there was really only one day I thought would provide information I thought I could use in the Park. We discussed the options, but I was insistent. One day was sufficient. I completed the registration and he took care of the fine points (i.e., payment), and when he stood up from the desk, I couldn't help myself. I threw my arms around him in a bear hug, trying to keep the tears from running down my face. And then, after I finished my office work with as few corrections as I could manage through my excitement, I went out walking in the snow and found the Kidneys.

It's been a long time since I had a day like this one.