Becaws It's Hallowe'en

Day 18: We're a bit short on cornfields around here, but Happy Hallowe'en from Crow!

Microtome

Day 17: When preparing specimens for viewing through a compound microscope, tissue should be sliced as thinly as possible. This is extremely difficult to do by hand, although it is possible to obtain a workable section of soft material such as a lichen apothecium. A better solution is to use a microtome. The tissue is mounted in dental wax or paraffin if it is too small to be placed directly in the central chamber and then a slice is made with a straight razor to remove the end. By turning the dial at the base of the microtome, the mounted tissue can be advanced in 1-micron increments. With practice, it is possible to make cuts as thin as 1 micron. This will allow you to view the cellular structure of botanical specimens.

Help Or Hazard?

Day 16: With decent weather for a few days and nothing on my schedule, I've been able to get out to enjoy some autumn hiking, including a six-mile loop in Pack Forest which took me up the Reservoir Trail and down the more popular Hugo Peak Trail. The Reservoir Trail tends to be quite muddy lower down, and in an effort to provide better footing, Pack has seen fit to mount 2 x 4 fencing on the surface of the plank "bridges" which span the soggier areas. While this installation may be marginally better than a slick board when wet, even a light frost renders it treacherous. I have gone "skating" across the grid many a time, even when taking utmost care. Ordinarily, I would not contemplate stepping off the official path, but here, my safety takes precedence over other considerations and like most other people who hike these trails, I will walk alongside the boards, preferring muddy boots to possible injury. However good Pack's intentions were, this innovation goes into the category of "it seemed like a good idea at the time," and needs reevaluation.

Usnea Longissima, Mother Nature's Garland

Day 15: For me, the main attraction at Rainey Creek is a tree festooned with Usnea longissima, the lichen I call "Mother Nature's Garland." Its semi-official common name is "Methuselah's Beard," presumably derived from the great lengths it sometimes attains. Unlike other Usneas, it does not form branches off the central cord; it may grow up to 10 feet according to Brodo, but after tracing one strand back a full six, I'm inclined to think that may be a low estimate.

Longissima only thrives where the air is free of pollutants, a factor which may also account for the healthier-than-average population of mosquitoes along Rainey Creek. From the bridge where the Usnea Tree stands, the view shows other trees equally wreathed, but only immediately alongside the stream channel. I have found other wisps of this graceful lichen further from the creek, struggling for survival where they may have been dropped by a bird carrying potential nesting material. This Usnea occurs in other local areas, but to date, I have found none as lush as those along Rainey Creek...as good a reason as any to pay it a visit when the skeeters aren't flying!

Bridge Over Rainey Creek

Day 14: Rainey Creek is not a place you want to visit during mosquito season, but during early spring or mid-autumn, the walk to the bridge can be a delightful diversion. However, if you go during hunting season, you should be advised to wear orange. The brush is thick in places, and you wouldn't want your movement to be mistaken for that of an elk or pheasant. The first half-mile follows an old road, but once you've crossed the bridge, muddy trails take you in various directions. Today, I explored a branch I'd never followed and as enticing as it was to think about continuing on when the path began to climb after a short ways, I had other things on my agenda and decided to leave it for another visit when I can make botany a priority. That said, I was pleased to find the Usnea Tree doing well...but that's for tomorrow's post.

Ohop Creek Deception

Day 13: Just look at those puffy clouds and that pretty blue sky! You'd think it was summer on Ohop Creek...until you look at the bottom photo which shows that typical Pacific Northwest "white sky" during a brief break in the rain. Yes, the clouds came out of a box, i.e., they're a filter in my photo processing software.

Today needed all the outside help it could get. Gloomy, wet, dismal, and me with a list of things to do which I'd rather have postponed indefinitely if that was in my character. I am guilty of having put one off for a number of months (I only go to the doctor as an alternate to booking a mortician), but even that is behind me now, and with nothing more than a "take it easy for a while" caution to see me out the door. My driver's license is good for another six years, and I have a stockpile of millet flour and molasses which should last me at least 12 months. Even if the summer skies are a deception, little Ohop Creek brightened the hastily-revised agenda for this dreary and somewhat tedious day.

End-of-Season Report

Day 12: It's the time of the year when we're working on writing those end-of-season reports, and the statistics from my garden are in. I am happy to announce that with one exception, everything I planted last spring and summer has survived and appears to be sufficiently established to weather the winter. The one fatality was a maidenhair fern which was rather feeble at the time of purchase. The second one is doing fine.

This mum wintered over from 2015 in the strawberry jar despite numerous hard freezes. While it's not the first mum I've had return from the dead the following year, it happens infrequently enough to be notable. It provided me with colour throughout the summer, bushing out over the sedums which otherwise fill the planter. It will be interesting to see if I get a third year from it. For a buck and a half, that can't be beat!

Scoping Out Boletus Chrysenteron

Day 11: Not all identifications can be made with the naked eye. According to one field guide, "Boletus truncatus is a common species in conifer forests and can only be separated from B. chrysenteron by looking at the spores, which are truncate on one end." Right, and that's why I have a microscope...not that I'd be eating any blue-staining boletes. Some of the staining species are purportedly edible, but "may cause reactions in certain individuals," so I'm not taking any chances. Still, it's nice to be able to put names on the things you find growing in your yard, so when Boletus somethingorotherus popped up under my big Doug fir, I decided an analysis was in order. I fully expected my 'shrooms to be B. truncatus and studied images of the spores of both species while my sample was shedding onto a slide overnight. This morning, Mr. Boletus' true identity came to light when the 'scope revealed thousands upon thousands of perfectly non-truncate material. Boletus chrysenteron it is, spores at 1000x magnification.

Not The Grape-est Harvest

Day 10: Pruning grapes is an art I have yet to master. My fishing buddy's brother-in-law Eddie tried to teach me, but his instructions were so heavily inflected with swear-words and backtracking (amusingly so) that I was never able to pick the principle out of the verbal detritus. I've succeeded in getting a good crop two or three times, but it's been only by sheer luck or accident. I know that grapes fruit on last year's new wood, but identifying it in winter is not as easy as it sounds, and I usually resort to simply leaving two nodes on every cane regardless of its age. While in principle you might think that would result in a success rate of 50%, it never seems to do so. Admittedly, weather plays a role and our cool early summer may have come at the wrong time to set fruit, but I really had to hunt high and low among the leaves to find a second cluster of grapes equivalent to this pitiful offering.

New Kids On The Block

Day 9: Meet the new kids on the block! I've so enjoyed Huernia zebrina (Lifesaver Plant) that I decided to add its close relative, Huernia procumbens (left) and another similar plant, Stapelia scitula. Procumbens' flower sports the family's typical red "lifesaver" in the center of a star the colour of rich cream. I've just transplanted it, so it will undoubtedly drop the blossoms currently forming (lower left), but if it's anything like zebrina, it won't be long before it puts on more. Stapelias bear a similar star-shaped flower, but lack the raised "lifesaver" center. Scitula's blooms will be purple-maroon flecked with yellow, reminiscent of the starfish which supply its common name. Stapelias are native to South Africa. Both succulents root easily from pieces broken off the parent plant.

Rainbow In The Garden

Day 8: Time for a confession, here...yes, I arranged this shot, but when I saw the brilliant colours of the dogwood leaf in proximity to the Lithodora, I couldn't resist the opportunity to capture a rainbow.

Most of the leaves are still hanging on our deciduous trees despite some rather windy conditions of late, the exception being the big-leaf maples which are starting to look weary of carrying their gold. Nearly all of the vine maples (a species with much smaller leaves) took a miss on turning red and went straight from an unenthusiastic yellow to a shopworn brown. The dogwood (a "red" cultivar in my yard) is green but dull and without its summer luster, though a few leaves like this one seem to insist that autumn is for celebrating. I'm sure it will convince its cousins before too long!

Ma's Menu

Day 7: If there had been any question in my mind about what I should have for dinner tonight, Ma Nature took the issue out of my hands by placing five slightly slug-chewed but entirely worm-free Boletus edulis ("Boleti eduli?") between our parking place and the office. Rain notwithstanding, I stooped on them like a raptor on a bunny, leaving a few smaller ones behind as is my custom. As much as I love chanterelles, the King Boleta rules, and this particular spot has given me two nice meals this fall.

My late husband had a nose for finding this epicurean delight, whether in the lowlands, the high country, east or west side of the mountains. We often made meals of them while backpacking, although there is very little nutritive value in mushrooms of any sort. The stipes of the species are quite robust, yet are tender when cooked throughout. Backpackers may choose to fix them by simply frying in butter, but for a real treat, cut quarter-inch slices, dip in beaten egg and breadcrumbs and prepare as you would eggplant. They can also be used as the "meat" in a lasagna, layered with sauce, pasta and cheese.

As for the question of dinner, it only remains to decide how the King shall be served. That lasagna is sounding pretty good.

Basest Fears

Day 6: Sit back down! Now, tell me why you jumped out of your hide at the sight of a perfectly innocent Cross Orbweaver (Araneus diadematus). "I don't like spiders!" Yeah, I gathered that. I have to admit I'm not keen on the subject myself (few people are), but what is it about them which causes one of our basest fears to surface? Is it that they have eight legs? So does an octopus, and I imagine you don't regard octopi with the same measure of loathing. Is it that they seem to defy gravity and can suspend themselves in mid-air? Hummingbirds manage that, although admittedly it takes a lot of wing flapping. If you have lived or live in an area where poisonous spiders occur, you would be justified in according them all due respect when you encounter them, but why do we, collectively and almost universally, dislike spiders so much?

Quite honestly, I don't have the answer. My fear of spiders was instilled in me at an early age by my mother. She was terrified of them, but then, we had black widows to worry about. My mother's reaction to finding a black widow in our back yard made quite an impression on me at age three or four, so I spent many years panicking whenever even a small spider entered my personal space. As a naturalist, I later learned to value them as part of the natural order, but it took quite a bit longer before I could force myself to take the steps necessary to remove a live one from my house.

Ms. Orbweaver slung her rigging between the outdoor housing of my heat pump and a hosta I was planning to divide after I'd pulled the frost-nipped tomatoe vines today. I almost got my head in her web, but caught her presence in the tail of my eye in time to prevent an encounter which would probably have sent me screaming into the next county. It would have been a grave injustice to her, considering the service she renders in my garden. The hosta can be divided later. She's outside, I'm inside, and we'll leave it at that for now.

Sound & Fury

Day 5: Last night was Morris dance again, my second session with the Seattle side, Sound & Fury. It was held in the Phinney Neighborhood Center, a beautiful old building which although modernized retains its early 1900s feel through preservation of the original dark wooden staircases, trim and fittings. The rooms have been brought up for various purposes, including this large hall where another dance group was in session ahead of us.

Sound & Fury's squire (leader of the group) introduced a new and fairly simple dance, possibly because they had a "new kid on the block" (yours truly) as well as rehearsing several which everyone knew except me. The squire invited me to participate in all but the most complex dance so I'd learn even if I made mistakes. The woman who danced opposite me was very helpful, advising me in advance as to what steps or moves I would be doing next. I was made to feel that I was a part of the group despite my lack of experience. That said, Seattle is a long way from home. Attending practices every week is out of the question, but even at once or twice a month, I think I'll learn a lot from these patient instructors.

Late Chicory

Day 4: I had a little time to kill a few days ago and decided to go for a walk through Smallwood Park and along a short section of the Bud Blancher trail just to see...well, lots of things. My Shaggymane spot has overgrown with blackberries, popping the balloon of imagination which had mushroom soup on the night's menu. The trail was empty of Woolly Bears and the river had washed away the last of the caddis-flies' stone "shells." The lichens hadn't seen enough rain to be happy, although they seemed to be trying to muster a small bit of enthusiasm for the cooler temperatures and autumn overall. I had nearly decided to call my walk a bust, if a walk in nature could ever be called a complete waste of time, when I rounded a corner and found the single blue eye of a late-waking Chicory plant winking at me from the brush. That moment of colour drew me into its cheerful glance and transformed my mood into the sudden whimsy of its hue. Who says weeds don't have a bright side?

Indoor Gardening

Day 3: Over the years, I've made numerous attempts at growing a Venus Fly-Trap and have yet to have one survive in my care longer than about six months. You'd think I'd give up...I gave up on orchids after a few stunning failures...but I do love my carnivores, so I keep experimenting with different types of water (spring water, rain water, distilled water, the heavily mineralized water out of my tap) and various means of humidity control (in a terrarium, in a saucer of water, on the shower window ledge), but have yet to hit on the right formula. The plants go dormant and sometimes the foliage will disappear altogether, so it's not always easy to tell if you're wasting time nurturing an empty pot, further complicating the issue of culture. In any event, this specimen should provide me with a couple of months of amusement at the very least.

Carex Under Scrutiny

Day 2: When a rarity is discovered, it is not enough to simply document it and move on. One must seize the opportunity for further investigation in the hopes of bringing something previously unknown or unnoticed to light. In the case of a botanical find, this often involves repeated trips to the site, pulling in various outside experts, analyzing anything and everything which might be a contributing factor in the species' preference for a specific location or ecology.

Since I was clearly out of my depth when it came to sedge identification, our Park plant ecologist took it upon himself to "bone up" on the subject and go into the field with technical manuals in hand. Once he had obtained a specimen of a likely host for the rare fungus we discovered earlier in the year, he sent his findings along to me to see if the same questions were raised in my mind. Indeed they were! He brought me a sample of the sedge so that I could take photos of it through the microscope to validate his ID. A lot of "ifs" followed in our ensuing emails and personal conversations, largely based around the evidence that this is the only sedge at one of the fungus sites. IF we can demonstrate that it hosts the fungus, it will be the first record of Myrio parasitizing this species of Carex. Unfortunately, my minute dissection of all parts of the specimen failed to yield up the slightest trace of the fungus on this individual plant.

Heading Into Autumn

Day 1: 365 Caws began its run on October 14, 2010 with a one-year "mission statement" in response to a challenge from photographer friends who were engaging in various "365" projects of their own. Little did I expect that it would continue beyond that year! Today, 365 Caws enters its SEVENTH year of publication. If you're ever bored and need something to read, why not give the early years a look?

Heading into Autumn, the first storm of the season was predicted to hit last night, and while my wind chimes rang steadily for an hour or two, no truly strong gusts disturbed the night. However, almost two inches of rain fell in 24 hours, turning my driveway into muddy soup and pounding the last of the tomatoes into acceptance of their unavoidable fate. The deciduous trees are still hanging onto their slowly colouring leaves, most still green or red according to species, although the big-leaf maples in my neighbour's yard are starting to look tatty and worn. The pussywillow against the garage has shed the burden from its upper half into the recently-cleaned gutter, a complication induced by pure laziness on my part, not wanting to climb back up the ladder to remove the fallen foliage from the roof.

Still, I'm reluctant to take the 'yak rack off the car. I'd like to get in one more paddle on Lake St. Clair to check for more Sundew hibernacula, but that may resolve into a springtime project instead. The high country is certainly going to be closed to me by snow; as much as I love snowshoeing, I don't like driving on the stuff to get to the starting point. My lovely lichens will perk up now that they've had a good soaking, so my readers should expect more posts regarding the taxon I describe as "the wildflowers of winter."

A second, stronger storm is expected tomorrow night, possibly "historic" in nature if the forecasts are accurate. I'm hoping not!

Leptoglossus Occidentalis, Western Conifer Seed Bug

Day 366: Yes, you get a bonus post! 2016 was a Leap Year, and I was fortunate that Leptoglossus didn't take that literally. As it is described in "Insects of the Pacific Northwest," it is a common species but rarely seen because it spends its life in the forest canopy. I suspect it was dislodged by yesterday's wind, although why it took refuge on the handle of my watering can is anyone's guess.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Coreidae (squash bugs) is the flattened segment of the hind leg, visible in this photo. It may serve as additional camouflage, breaking the linear profile of the leg into something more leaf-like and hard to see. Leptoglossus has an additional defense mechanism if its disguise fails. It carries scent glands which emit a foul odor when the insect is disturbed.

Vanessa Atalanta, Red Admiral

Day 365: With nighttime temperatures dipping rather close to freezing, I was surprised yesterday to see three Red Admirals in my yard, distinctly different individuals as evidenced by the bird damage (or lack of it) to their wings. This was the freshest specimen and naturally, the hardest to photograph because it was more lively. Marigolds seemed to provide the greatest draw among the plants in my garden, but the prevalent cat's-ear "dandelion" came second.

Coincidentally, I happen to be reading "Chasing Monarchs," Robert Michael Pyle's incredible story of tracking Monarch butterflies from Canada to Mexico. His writing is eloquent and presents the natural history of the species in a most entertaining and digestible manner. No dry science here! In fact, I am finding the book hard to put down as I ride along beside him (figuratively) through the deserts of eastern Washington and Oregon. Many of the places he's stopped are familiar to me; I see them in my mind with him inserted into the picture, loping across the basaltic landscape and rabbitbrush in pursuit of a Monarch for tagging, following his passion.

His Monarchs meet with all kinds of perils: birds, insecticides, bad weather. It is the latter which worries me now for the Admirals in my own little pocket ecology. We have a series of fronts moving in which are expected to bring high winds and heavy rain. But unlike the Monarchs, my black-and-orange beauties are not compelled by the urge to migrate and will winter over. In character with their common name, the Admirals will take any port in a storm.

Penny Perspectives - Drosera Rotundifolia

Day 364: Several of my readers have requested a Penny Perspective featuring the Sundews of Lake St. Clair. I'm more than happy to oblige because they have been one of the best finds of my botanical career. It was only by chance that I spotted them. I had gone looking for a "paddle cache" (a geocache which can only be accessed by water) and decided to explore the lake a little further with no real purpose in mind. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a hint of red on a log some 50-60 feet away from my 'yak and, like a character in a cartoon, I did the classic double-take. "Waitaminit...are those SUNDEWS?" They were one of the top three plants on my Bucket List, and I'd never expected to find them in Washington. As you can see, Drosera rotundifolia colonies are not large. This image shows a very healthy and vigorous specimen.

Hibernaculum!

Day 363: Today was a memorable day in the career of this naturalist. I paid the Lake St. Clair Sundews a chilly visit and found one...only one of many...starting to form a hibernaculum. This phase of Drosera rotundifolia's lfe cycle is one I had not been privileged to observe until today. The buds of new laminae ("paddles") will remain tightly curled until spring and the outer ones will die back. This unusual adaptation demonstrates this insectivore's winter survival strategy for conserving precious warmth during freezing temperatures.

Double Batch

Day 362: Of all the preserves, jams and jellies I make, my very favourite is Cranberry-Orange Marmalade. I never make enough and always run out before cranberries come on the market the following year. When I discovered that the first crop had come in at the grocery store yesterday, I decided to seize the opportunity to get ahead of the game. I bought enough fruit for a double batch, and have been in the kitchen for the last six hours to produce a final yield of 22 half-pints.

Marmalade is rather time-consuming, but I've learned a few tricks which make preparing the fruit a little easier. Peeling oranges and lemons with a potato peeler provides delightfully thin shavings of rind and avoids adding too much of the bitter white citrus pith which can throw off the taste of the jam. I prefer a "shred" style marmalade with finely sliced pieces of peel rather than chunks, and this is easily accomplished by further cutting the strips of peel with a knife or scissors. The pith remaining on each orange or lemon is discarded along with seeds and as much membrane as it is possible to remove, and then the cleaned segments are put through a grinder. The peels, ground fruit and cranberries are cooked for half an hour with a little soda and water. Then sugar is added to the cooked fruit and processing continues as for any other jam.

To Eat Or Not To Eat

Day 361: Hypomyces lactifluorum ("Lobster mushroom") shown on the right is a parasitic fungus which occurs on various species of Russula (left) and Lactarius, forming an overgrowth of vivid orange often even before the host species emerges from the soil. It is reputedly edible, but since some of the hosts may cause gastric upset, I have always been reluctant to try it. This philosophy of "better safe than sorry" was confirmed when I asked a Parkie friend if she ate it. "Not any more," she told me and added "I think I've developed a sensitivity to it," patting her tummy by way of elaboration. Other consumers have reported that not all "Lobsters" taste alike. Some are good, but others leave a distinctly fishy and unpleasant aftertaste. That said, the woods are full of Lobsters right now, and that's where I plan to leave them.

It's Curtains For Me

Day 360: We all have times when we feel like we're losing control of our lives, our destinies. We may not realize it, but often our behaviour reflects that emotion in some way. For me, it usually manifests as a fit of furniture-moving. I put the harpsichord in the other corner of the living room, or I switch my bed around so my head and feet are pointing east-west instead of north-south. Usually, that minor adjustment to my attitude (pun intended) is sufficient to give the illusion that I've taken charge, and the mood passes. However, events of the last month or so have left me with the sensation of things being entirely out of my control, to the point that instead of moving furniture, I went out and bought new drapes and rods to replace those which have hung over my "picture windows" for the last thirty years. The drapes arrived several days ago; the rods showed up early this afternoon, and I've spent the day installing them. As far as regaining control of my life, I guess it's just curtains for me.

The 60 Pound Dog

Day 359: There is an old bit of advice which cautions that behaviour we may find amusing in an eight-pound puppy may not be quite so entertaining in a sixty-pound dog. That is certainly the case with Violas. Cute though they may be in portrait, they quickly fade and turn into leggy plants which have little appeal by the end of the season. And they are persistent. I have been trying to rid my garden of them for almost thirty years now, and they still keep popping up beneath the sheltering leaves of the ornamentals. They have escaped into my lawn and vegetable pots despite my diligence, and often evade notice until some morning when I throw back the curtains and find them smiling at me in full bloom. Johnny-jump-up! Was ever a plant so aptly named? They jump up everywhere, as persistent as dandelions. Too bad they can't stay puppies forever.

Walking The Talk

Day 358: However inspiring Zeno's words are, they are impossible to live by in today's society. I try to make environmentally-sensitive decisions, but my home is not plastic-free. I discard and replace things I could probably repair. I even occasionally resort to using chemical controls on certain persistent weeds in my yard. I recycle extensively, but not all materials are accepted by our service. What do you do when you order a product and it arrives packed in styrofoam? I often choose the lesser of two evils when one or the other is necessary to satisfy creature comfort, e.g., weighing whether the shorter lifespan and greater power draw of incandescent lighting are a better choice than mercury-containing "curly" bulbs (given that mercury is now being detected in many birds, incandescent wins). In short, I do what I can to "walk my talk," but still feel I fall very short of the goal. Still, I'd like to think I make up for a portion of the deficiency in other ways, answering to my environmental conscience's insistence that I could do more during my tenure upon Mother Earth.

Fall Colour

Day 357: The "drizmal" season has arrived, and already I'm longing for the backcountry, oppressed by rain and grey skies. It was just a week ago that I was stepping out among the brilliant colours of autumn, hiking in shirt sleeves to delight in the crispness of a September morning. The grey had not yet turned gray, a distinction in spelling which I employ to differentiate soft, comforting hues from those of gloom and foreboding so persistent in our Pacific Northwestern winters. An absence of sunlight does not bother me; born-and-bred Washingtonians regard the sun's shine as intrusive and painful. We revel in our overcast, despite the fact that our fellow photographers from elsewhere in the country invariably accuse us of having "blown out the sky," not understanding that white or grey are normal and blue is a rare exception. Neither do short days bother me to any great extent, but being penned indoors by cold, soaking rain pushes strongly against my tolerance for inclement weather. It came too fast, this shift to the dreariness of October, as if someone threw the switch and locked the doors behind Summer.

Prumnacris Rainierensis, Cascade Timberline Grasshopper

Day 356: Years ago when I used to hike extensively off-trail, one route I consistently took to get from Here to There was so heavily populated by grasshoppers that I dubbed it the "Grasshopper Track." I would pass along it, shuffling my feet to keep from stepping on any of the hundreds of hoppers who fled in all directions (not always away from danger), and the sound of their leapings and landings is one I will forever associate with September camps in my beloved high country. The species were assorted; some small, some large, and occasionally, an enormous specimen with a distinctly different body morphology, fatter than the rest. More concerned with other things, I never bothered to try to identify them, but during my latest MeadoWatch hike, I found another "Grasshopper Track" quite accidentally. Although this guy wasn't the largest representative of his species that I've seen, I can now put a name to him: Prumnacris rainierensis, Cascade Timberline Grasshopper.

In person, the coppery colour of the exoskeleton is much more pronounced. The body is quite short in comparison to other grasshoppers and also heavier, giving the impression of "stubby and stout." The antennae are shorter as well, and the chin bears a pair of spurs, giving rise to the common name for the family of "spur-throated grasshoppers." I saw less than half a dozen of this species, but this new "Grasshopper Track" was abundantly populated with others; green, gold, brown, some tiny, some of normal size, and all clicking and popping from dried leaves to withered sedge blades with a sound which carried my thoughts to a place most dear to my heart and blithe September days alone amid its beauties.

MeadoWatch Muscaria

Day 355: Is there a person alive who doesn't associate this mushroom with faeries, children's stories, video games? How did that get started, anyway? Well, it all began in Europe...

Although the North American version of Amanita muscaria goes by the same scientific nomenclature as the European species, there is something in its makeup which qualifies it poisonous on this continent but edible in Europe. The fools among American mushroom collectors will tell you that it is a hallucinogen and will give you a high but neglect to mention that the long-term effects of the amanitoxins contained in it include liver and kidney damage which may not show up for years and may lead to an untimely demise. The European muscaria contains fewer of those alkaloids, although they are not entirely absent. The amount is sufficiently lower to place muscaria among the edible species in Europe, and its recognizability led it to become the poster child for "mushroom." Many European children's books contained illustrations of muscaria, and when European settlers came to North America, their use of it as the stereotypical mushroom of faerie tale continued.

This can all be very confusing to a child or even to an adult. The bottom line is that you should leave this one where it sits. I won't go into another rant about being "105% sure" of any mushroom species you pick for your table. You already know that mushrooms can be quite difficult to tell apart, and if you're the kind of person who thinks a 20-minute trip among bright colours and weird shapes is worth paring five or ten years off your life or suffering through dialysis or hepatic collapse, my lecture would be wasted on you.

Partridgefoot Pods

Day 354: One of the challenges of botany is being able to recognize plants in their different phenophases: foliage, bud, blossom, fruiting, releasing or having released seed. With some species such as this Partridgefoot (Luetkea pectinata), the foliage persists into the later phases, but in others, it withers as fruits are forming. That said, there are other issues which may make identification difficult; case in point, a photo of foliage which landed in my email a few days ago, submitted first to a ranger, thence to our Plant Ecologist who forwarded it to me with the note, "My mind is blank." I recognized the leaves (red, clothed for autumn) as something familiar, but couldn't dredge up a memory of the blossom, so I referred it out to two experts in the field. I said "challenge," didn't I? The two botanists identified the family and confirmed my initial suspicion, but disagreed as to species. Why was this particular plant so difficult? Because it had been affected by either insect galls or disease.