Bird's Nest Fungi

Day 280: Quoting from "Mushrooms of North America" (Orson K. Miller, Jr., E. P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1972), "The curious resemblance to a bird's nest of the fungi in this group makes them easy to identify. They are smaller than a dime and usually many fruiting bodies are found close together. The 'nest' is completely enclosed at first in most species and the spores develop inside of 'eggs' called peridioles, within the enclosed nest. At maturity the top of the nest is ruptured and exposes the eggs. The eggs are ejected from the nest when raindrops literally splash them out."

These are among the largest (yes, largest) of the Bird's Nest fungi I have personally seen (ball point pen for comparison). I discovered them today among the debris beached by the Nisqually River during the massive floods of 2006. The wood on which they were growing has been exposed to bright sunlight, snow, rain, prolonged periods of dryness and just about anything else the weather could throw at these tiny fungi, yet they remain indomitable, their peridioles poised to create a new colony wherever they might fall. In looking over the landscape of river rock and bleached wood, one might have taken the scene for lifeless but for the few pioneer plants poking up between stones, yet at my feet was a wondrous, microcosmic world of life, colored like its surroundings. It made me wonder what people miss by looking only at the broader view.