Hericium Coralloides

Day 71: Three species of Hericium are known to occur in Washington, with the most common type being H. abietis. The other two have only been documented in a few counties, and I am pleased to say that one of the records is my own observation of H. coralloides (above) from 2020. I had not seen it in the intervening years, so was rather surprised when I found it again a few days ago in the same location which, of course, I never pass without checking for it since it is relatively rare. This particular specimen is well-protected by brush and brambles, and had I not known exactly where to look, I would have passed it by without noticing it. As it was, when I came to the tree, I thought I could see a glimpse of pinkish white in the tangle and, at hazard to life, limb and eyeglasses, pushed my way through to an unobstructed view. I could barely crouch down without spiking some portion of anatomy on thorns, and once the requisite photo had been taken, extricating myself from the cage of branches and bristles was another challenge since I'd bent them all down one direction as I'd made my way in. For a brief moment, I felt much as a lobster must feel when it enters a trap. Botany is not a bed of rose petals, my friends. It can be a very dangerous sport.

Hericium Coralloides

Day 6: Walking through the forest, I disconnect from most conscious thought processes in favour of enhancing other senses. Trying to solve the world's woes or dwelling on things over which I have no control is counter-productive when striving to experience Nature at its fullest. Far better is it to simply live in the moment, letting sights and sounds chart the path. So it was that a Hericium caught the tail of my eye where it was set amid a tangle of salmonberry vines several feet off the trail, and I had gone past it a good ten steps before a detail registered subliminally. Abruptly snapped from reverie and into the strictures of science, I said aloud, "Hang on a mo'...that was the OTHER one." What exactly had keyed that conclusion? I couldn't have said at the time, but I walked backwards quite literally, step by step until the fungus was again in my field of vision. Then presented with the challenge of bulling my way through the thorns for an unobstructed photograph, I pulled down my sleeves, dropped my pack and inched my way toward the goal. In squatting down to take the picture, it was a given that I would pinch at least one salmonberry branch between the calf of my leg and the back of my thigh; this is just one of the hazards of my task as a botanist. Even as I knelt there, I could not have told you why I knew this was not Hericium abietis, our most common Hericium, although I studied the arrangement of its branches, the lacination of the tips and so on. It was not until I dragged out the field guides at home that I found I had been too narrowly focused, and that it was the fact that it was growing on Red Alder (Alnus rubra) which separated it from its morphologically identical cousin. Hericium coralloides grows on hardwood, not conifer. That was what had pushed the subconscious button, and only because my mind was free of life's daily detritus was the mental directory activated.