Last Towel

Day 260: Inspired by a project from the Weaving Works, I decided that I should weave a Pride Month towel as the last one in a series using a traditional bird's-eye draft. When I finished it up and advanced the warp, I discovered that there was enough remaining to make a place-mat or possibly even another towel. I'm usually rather generous when I measure warp because "too much" is decidedly preferable to "too little" at the end of a project. In this case, I'd kept the spacing between towels fairly close, gaining an inch or two between each pair. Coupled with the extra warp length, this gave me more than I usually leave for the sample I keep in my weaving file. I decided to use the same rainbow design for the last one. Next up will be a much more complicated "Summer and Winter" lap throw. The warp is already measured and ready to go on the loom.

S.O.U.S.es

Day 259: If you've seen "The Princess Bride," you will probably recall Buttercup and Wesley's encounter with the R.O.U.S.es ("Rodents Of Unusual Size"). Note, please, that "unusual" is not synonymous with "enormous," although in the case of the Rodents, that was its meaning. "Unusual" means "out of the ordinary," and that was certainly applicable to a strange growth I discovered on a short length of dead salmonberry stem. I'd been angling around to get the best image of yesterday's Streptopus when it caught my eye. Initially, I took it for a slime mold, and got all excited at the prospect of adding yet another species to Mount Rainier National Park's growing list, but when I looked more closely, I wasn't quite convinced. The tiny dots, the largest of which would have been well under 1 mm, appeared to be concave. "Lichen apothecia?" I said aloud. My naked eye couldn't tell, so a small piece followed me home to go under the microscope, and what I saw there was definitely a surprise. Orange disks were ringed by a fringe of eyelash-like rooting hairs. What I had found was fungal: a Scutellinia of some sort. Accessible information on Scutellinia species is very limited, so after a period of searching for one which was both tiny and grows on Rubus, I had narrowed the options down to one: Scutellinia erinaceus, but I wasn't confident in the ID. I sent the photo off to my contact at the Burke Herbarium, who in turn forwarded it to a mycology expert, and she came back with the same conclusion, although with the same degree of hesitation I felt. Erinaceus or not, it is definitely a S.O.U.S. (Scutellinia Of Unusual Size). And from here on out, I will be paying a lot closer attention to dead salmonberry stems.

Streptopus Lanceolatus, Rosy Twisted-Stalk

Day 258: Rosy Twisted-Stalk (Streptopus lanceolatus) doesn't seem to be as abundant these days as it was thirty or forty years ago, at least not in the areas which I commonly hike. This, of course, is anchored in purely personal recollection, and therefore subject to question as an actual record, but I am attuned to this kind of thing and trust my memory when it comes to plant phenology. There have been no suggestions that the species is moving toward "threatened" or "endangered" status, only a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that there should be more of it in this "pocket ecology" or that. Is it truly in decline, or is my mental database losing its integrity? Unfortunately, my "notebook" has long been maintained solely between my ears, with the occasional photograph to support it. This is just one of the lessons I've come to appreciate in my advancing years: "If only I'd known then what I know now" or as it is sometimes stated, "Hindsight is so much clearer than foresight." Streptopus has taught me that, but rather too late to do anything about it.

Anticlea Occidentalis, Mountain-Bells

Day 257: "Learn something new every day." That's not always easy to do, but sometimes it occurs as a happy accident. Such was the case when I was verifying that the taxonomy of Anticlea occidentalis hadn't changed again. I know the plant's common name as "Mountain-bells," but common names being rather flexibly applied, many nurseries refer to various Alliums as "Mountain Bells" (with or without a hyphen). The term may also be casually dispensed to several other mountain-dwelling, bell-shaped flowers. Common names annoy me, but nevertheless, discovering that our native Anticlea is also known as "Feather-bells" scored a point on my "Learn something new" chart; I had not heard it before, and it seems more appropriate to the delicate, recurved petals of this dainty flower. Mountain-bells are almost always ringing, their chimes only audible to faeries and other woodland sprites. The slightest breeze sets them in motion at the ends of their thready stems. Habitués of moist meadows and seeps, they may also be referred to as "Bronze Bells" or "Mission Bells" by those who don't care to be more specific about a plant's true identity.

Pinguicula Vulgaris, Butterwort

Day 256: Every time my botany partners refer to "Butterwort," I experience a moment of confusion. Butterwort? Do I know that plant? Oh, Pinguicula! Why, when the Latin option is such a delightful word, would anyone call this delicate insectivore by an English name? The suffix "-wort" means "plant." Okay, that's easy. Perhaps "Butter" refers to the yellowish foliage and, extending that logic with no particular validation, the fact that flies stick to it when they land on it. Anyone who's ever been to a picnic can see the sense in that. In fact, the Latin nomenclature derives from "pinguis," meaning "fat," and indeed the leaves have an oily sheen to them due to the secretions produced by specialized glands. One secretion lures and ensnares insects and, as the insect struggles to free itself, another type of gland is stimulated to produce digestive enzymes. The insects' soft tissue is dissolved and absorbed into the leaves, leaving behind their hard exoskeletons, like those visible in this photo. Like many other "carnivorous" plants, Pinguicula likes moist areas where insect life is abundant and temperatures stay on the cool side even during heat waves.

One Big Happy Myrio Family

Day 255: A run into the Park at this point in terms of snow-melt would not have been complete without a visit to (mumble) to check on Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae. While I am no longer overly concerned with the health and safety of this rare fungus after having found a super-abundance of it at another location within the Park boundaries, it is nice to see it alive and well at the site where my botany partners and I first found it. We have now mapped at least half a dozen areas where it occurs, some well-populated and others sparse. Knowing that it grows only on a few types of sedge has helped narrow our searches. At this location which we refer to as "Site A" (the only one currently snow-free), I found 40-60 cups on Wednesday. The largest two were approximately 15 mm in diameter.

Arcyria Celebrates Pride

Day 254: Deep in our Pacific Northwest forests, our sight is overwhelmed by greens and browns. Subtle colour are subsumed, lost in the confusion of verdant hues and shadows. The environment here is painted with a broad brush, one shade blending into another as it translates from the eye to the brain. Unless an object is vivid or obviously out of place, it does not register as distinct from the palette even at close range. The camera is not so easily fooled, and although while I was kneeling beside this bit of rotten wood, I would have described it as a generic "brown," the wide-open lens registered a pastel rainbow surrounding the slime mold which was the focus of my attention: Arcyria obvelata celebrating Pride Month with its own microcosmic parade.