Dear Little Bean Sprouts!

Day 21: Dear little bean sprouts! I was afraid they were gone for good. Every year about this time, I start checking one of Pack Forest's lesser-known trails for Clavaria vermicularis, aka "Fairy Fingers." To me, this member of the club fungi carries the apellation "bean sprouts" because that's what they look like in both size and colour. I am quite fond of them simply because they're unusual, and I'd become quite attached to this lot. I saw them last in 2019. In 2020 when I visited the site, I was shocked to see that it had been disturbed. What was peculiar about the disturbance was that it was limited to the exact 12" square of moss where the "bean sprouts" had always grown. The moss had been lifted as a neat rectangle, leaving the soil bare below, and had been dropped a foot away. Evidence pointed toward human interference, not that of an animal. I replaced the moss in its original location and then spent the rest of the day and some time thereafter puzzling over why anyone would have done such a thing, or indeed would have even known where they grew. They are neither edible nor hallucinogenic, so I concluded that they had been harvested as a specimen. It was the only logical justification I could imagine. The following two years were "sproutless" as well, so I almost didn't stop today, but I thought, "It's quick. I might as well check." And there they were...not in the original site, but on the spot where the clump of moss had been dropped by a person/creature unknown! Apparently, it had been full of spores because there are now more "bean sprouts" than ever before. It doesn't take much to make me happy. This made my day.

Fungal Fingers Of Fate

Day 364: At the main entrance to Pack Forest and just north of the gate house, you'll see a small rise with a set of steps leading up about four feet and a sign which says, "Model Forest Trail." The whole area is no more than 250 feet on a side, so you kinda wonder what it's all about. As you follow the path, you may notice a grapefruit-sized rock with a legend painted on it, like "1000 Rd." or "Hugo Peak." Eventually it registers: this postage-stamp of land is actually what the name implies, a scale model of Pack Forest. Now you begin paying attention to the layout. Yes, there's the canyon, deeply ditched but of course without the Nisqually running along its bottom, and here the 1000 Rd. splits to make its eventual loop. As you climb up (a whopping elevation gain of about ten feet), you come to Kirkland Pass and the junction of the 1000 and 2000 Rds. Following the 1000 down toward the Mashell, you begin to enter a meadow (represented by moss) and there, right before your very eyes, is something which has no full-scale equivalent: the fungal fingers of fate show in the photograph or, as I like to call them, the "bean sprouts."

It's been several years since I first discovered Clavaria vermicularis growing in the Model Forest. I would assume that their spores were brought in with the load of soil which now beds the moss. There was only a handful then and, in subsequent annual autumnal visits, no more than a few groupings ever appeared until now. As I've mentioned previously, fungal diversity and sheer biomass is at an all-time peak this year. 2019 will definitely go down in my book as the Year of the Fungus. I was not expecting to find more than a few threads of vermicularis in the heart of the moss "meadow," but not only were they present in abundance there, the hillside behind them (all three feet of it) sported a Mohawk of fine white clubs in a strip roughly six feet long by a foot wide. Obviously, the mycelium found this year's cooler, damper summer much to its liking, as did I.

Clavaria Vermicularis With Beetles

Day 20: Looking ever so much like they belong in a Chinese stiry-fry, Clavaria vermicularis is a fungus, not a vascular plant. I have been haunting the Model Forest trail at Pack Forest for the last several weeks, waiting for them to pop through the moss. There was no sign of them last week, but the recent rain encouraged their growth. It also seems to have brought out a few tiny, tiny beetles whose brownish shells make the Clavaria look even more like mung-bean sprouts. Also known as "Fairy Fingers," the coincidence of their fruiting around Hallowe'en-time makes me wonder why they weren't assigned the epithet, "Zombie Fingers" instead.

Clavaria Vermicularis

Day 55: I have been haunting one particular corner of the woods since the first rains arrived in October, hoping to see the ghostly white fingers of Clavaria vermicularis poking up through the step-moss. It wasn't a long walk to the site by any means, so I'd check every week or so and had just about given up hope, thinking that perhaps they wouldn't occur after this year's dry summer. I stopped again yesterday, and there they were, all three of them with another broken one six feet off to one side. This species is fairly common in Pacific Northwest forests and is slightly larger than its cousin C. acuta. Vermicularis grows in groupings, as opposed to acuta's tendency to demonstrate isolated clubs. If you're wondering how a non-gilled fungus like Clavaria reproduces, these critters have basidiocarps (microscopic spore-producing structures) on their top third.

Club-Fungi

Day 45: Many fungi have no widely accepted common names, so I figure I can call Clavulinopsis laeticolor "Butterfingers" if I please. These yellow/orange club-fungi can be found growing on mossy ground, usually in small clusters. It can be told from a similar species (Clavulinopsis helveola) by the squat triangular shape of its spores, but you'll need a good microscope to see them. At 1000x, I was unable to get a good image. There are many species of club-fungi in the Pacific Northwest, but most escape notice because of their size. While I was photographing these, I also spotted white Clavaria vermicularis (inset, upper right) which I would not have seen if I hadn't been down at ground level.