Upon Discovering A Maze...

Day 2: Jefferson County's HJ Carroll Park is not a place one would expect to find a faerie-land. The core area is devoted to athletic fields of one sort or another and a picnic area with pavilions (and by "core," I mean probably 25 of those 40 acres). It is ringed by a wide walking trail which is subsequently bordered by woods. Roughly a third of this woodland serves as a course for disc-golfers. The southern section is bounded by Chimacum Creek, accessible via several short forest paths. I had only just started down one of these in a hunt for invasive plants when I stumbled across the maze hidden in the freckled shadows of fragrant cedars. I could not recall it from previous explorations of the park; it's not something I would have missed. I walked its twists and turns with the delight of a child, discovering as I did so that it was not a true maze, but was laid out in such a way that to reach the center three stones, you were required to travel around every bend and corner. It was a meditative experience, both complex and simple. I wish I had known how to address the faeries who must surely dance there in the autumn fogs, but they did not reveal themselves.

Hypogymnia Hultenii

Day 1: It seems fitting my newest lichen discovery should take the honour of opening this tenth year of daily natural history posts. I don't often travel outside my own environmental niche, but when I have occasion to do so as I did yesterday, I make a point of exploring the regional ecosystem. I'm a scientist. You can't expect me to enjoy hitting the shops or tourist attractions. No, you should look for me in the woods somewhere. Look down, because I'll probably be on my hands and knees. That's exactly what happened when I found this Hypogymnia. There was only one piece of it, dropped from some branch well over my head, but it shouted at me visually because it just Didn't Look Right according to my mental field guide. As I examined it more closely, I made note of the distinguising features: flatter lobes than most other Hypogymnias, knobby collections of soredia at the lobe tips (what had caught my eye in the first place), rough lower surface. It took me a while to sort it out when I got home because it had undergone a taxonomic change and was in Brodo under the old genus Cavernularia, but eventually I came to Hypogymnia hultenii, a coastal species. Made sense, because after all, I was on the Olympic Peninsula. My day had been made, as they say, and there was Morris dancing yet to come. Happy New Year!