Almost Lonesome Myrio

Day 239: My botany partners and I went out on our first field trip of the year yesterday, and although we did not succeed at our primary mission to find a particular plant, we got to visit some old friends. Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae proved very elusive, and it was Joe who finally called out, "Found one!" It was a small specimen, but as perfect as could be hoped. Evaluating the conditions in the meadow, we were dismayed to find it drier than usual, a factor which certainly had an impact on Myrio's presence, but it was also possible that we had arrived past the fungus' peak fruiting period. Was there only one? Joe's keen eyes eventually brought one more example to light, even smaller than the first. We were unable to check any of the other sites where we have found this rare and elegant fungus.

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.

Myriosclerotinia Caricis-Ampullaceae

Day 257: The botany mission which compelled me to break voluntary isolation for the third time in four months had in fact three parts. The first was to document Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis. The second and third parts were conducted at the same location: photograph and identify a specific fungus which we believe may be associated with some of the rarer mycoheterotrophic species, and to check for possible soil disturbance where one of those species is known to occur, i.e., to ascertain whether it might have been dug out by an unscrupulous collector. However, as I was driving up the road, it occurred to me that I could also visit an old friend who I knew to be at home from a report from my botany partner, Joe. A rarity worldwide, Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae occurs in half a dozen locations as recorded by Team Biota over the last several years of exploration. It is parasitic on a narrow group of sedges, although in our observations, it is not affecting the sedge population at any of the documented sites. Myrio, as we lovingly refer to him, is a cute little thing...well, not so little, actually, but very difficult to see in situ, hiding behind sedge foliage or moss. Our largest specimen measured roughly 50 mm in height with a cup width of almost 20 mm. The largest I found on this trip was +30 mm in height, 15 mm in diameter. The size alone differentiates it from other similar species, as do other characteristics not readily visible in attached specimens. Myrio is also ephemeral, which is to say, "Here today, gone tomorrow." While some cups may persist for several days, the "season" for this fungus is a 14-day window at best. Certain factors can be used to predict its eruption at individual sites, which was why Joe checked on it last week. Had I waited until next week to visit the location, I might have missed the timing. All three missions plus one accomplished, I returned to isolation without having come into contact with a single human being, my need for contact satisfied by touching base with some of my dearest friends.

Myrio On Live Sedge

Day 244: Beth Fallon, the Park's new Arnie (Plant Ecologist), got to meet Myrio today when she and I took a field trip to the site of our largest population. The receding snow meant that we had to do a bit more bushwhacking than Joe and I had done on Tuesday, but it also meant that new fungi had popped out further upslope to the limits of the host sedge. Beth agrees with me that a survey would be helpful toward understanding the effects of the fungus on the sedge, but unfortunately, it's too late to push it through the approval process this year. That said, she was intrigued by Myrio and my description of its life cycle, so to that end, I tried to find a free-floating specimen with its sclerotium still attached. I was unable to locate one, but for the first time, was able to take a sample of the complete fungus attached to its LIVING host. The specimen will go in the Park's herbarium once it is dried and mounted.

A Kink In Its Tail

Day 242: One of the distinguishing features of Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae is a kink in the end of the stipe, and the stipe's termination in a "button" of tissue called the "sclerotium." The sclerotium anchors the fungus to its host sedge at a leaf axil. While neither the kink nor the sclerotium is visible in this photo, the curled stipe demonstrates the struggle this fungus puts up to reach the surface through a dense bed of sedge foliage. Myrio likes to keep his feet wet...not just damp, mind you, but wet...and emerges just as the snow pulls back, so field research can be a chilling proposition. Amid voluble cursing on the lines of, "Oh, damn, that's cold!" (rendered somewhat more family-friendly than the actual vocabulary), Joe and I waded barefoot into the fray hunting for exceptionally large specimens (size also confirms the identity of this rarity). In the process, we made a discovery: when the sedge dies and begins to decay, Myrio drifts free, allowing its fruiting bodies and their spores to move downrange. Our main site presents an opportunity to study the fungus' rate of spread and its effects on our native sedge population. Since this site was unknown in 1941 when Myrio was first discovered in the Park, we hope to establish a baseline for the next generation of researchers.

Where Rarity Is Abundant

Day 241: Forgive my enthusiasm, please, but after discovering a fungus which is rare world-wide not only as a species but as a genus, Team Biota has hit the fuddy-blucking mother lode of Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae at Mount Rainier National Park. Because neither of us thought to bring gumboots, we spent close to two hours wading barefoot in icy, shin-deep snowmelt (well, Joe stepped in a hole about two feet deep, so he gets bonus points) simply because we couldn't believe the abundance of cups. The largest we measured was a whopping 29 mm in diameter, surpassing the largest of our initial finds in 2016, but the most exciting discovery of the day was neither size nor number. We found numerous specimens which had detached from decaying sedge, leaving the stipe's end "curlicue" and sclerotium exposed, suggesting that the fungi are transported by the lightly flowing water in which they grow. This may also offer a clue as to why the cups disappear within a matter of days from their time of emergence. They may be being washed into deeper water or becoming buried beneath floating sedge, or both. In any event, the more information we can gather on this little critter, the better. I wish I had more years left to me in which to study them.

That Famous Fungus

Day 227: Team Biota took to the field today, checking on a few of our favourite rare species. Joe had gone alone to Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae "Site A" last week and reported a few small cups. Today, we found 50-60, the largest of which measured 11 mm. in diameter. None of the other known sites is snow-free, and even at Site A, meltwater is flowing too deeply through much of the sedge for the cups to have emerged. We will be watching this site very closely for this world-wide rarity over the next two weeks! As soon as our primary site opens up, we will begin a five-year observation to determine if the parasitic fungus is affecting sedge growth and development. Myrio was just one of several rare species we checked up on today, so stay tuned!

Field Research Proposal

Day 263: Thanks to boots-on-the-ground by a Park colleague who found the sedge meadow, Team Biota was able to visit the mother lode of all Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae yesterday. At least 2000 specimens dotted an area roughly 500' in diameter. We now have identified it as occurring in seven places, but nowhere was it as abundant as the one where this photo was taken. At the three sites we surveyed, we found in excess of 2500 specimens.

The new data puts a new perspective on this rare parasitic fungus and begs a larger question: Could Myrio be affecting our native sedge population adversely? Although its host sedge appears to be abundant, we have no way of knowing if there is less sedge present now than in the past. To answer this question, we've put forth a field research proposal to Arnie to set up control plots at the site where Myrio is most numerous, count the sedge stems and Myrio present, and monitor them over a period of at least five years to see if the census changes. As research projects go, this idea would require very little (if any) funding from the Park.

Another discovery yesterday gave us a clue into Myrio's ephemeral nature. On several occasions, we had returned to one of the sites on two subsequent days, only to find that the cups which were present on the first day had disappeared by the second. This made us wonder if they were being consumed by animals or insects, or if they were being resorbed into the soil, or if some other mechanism was in place to govern their ephemeral nature. At one location yesterday, we found that the sclerotium (the anchoring button at the end of the stipe which holds the fungus in place) had detached from the sedge in multiple instances, releasing the cups into flowing or circulating water. Many fungi were being transported into deeper water by the flow. This observation might also explain in part how the fungus spreads, moving from one pond to another.

Questions! Every time we go out, we come back with more questions! At least this time, we believe we have a means to an answer: a field research project to monitor Myrio's effect on the sedge population. Of course that will raise even more questions, but that's how science works.

A Team Biota Day

Day 257: Team Biota had a field day yesterday in two senses of the phrase. We spend 9.5 hours in a variety of habitats, including lowland and subalpine forests where hiking ranged from clambering over logs, weaving through devil's-club thickets, slogging in bogs and navigating cross-country over snow-covered terrain. We documented a total of six Phantom Orchids still in bud and a new location for Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae (a whopping 29 specimens), and managed to rule out several other potential sites for the latter. Muddy, wet, tired, the three of us (Joe, Sharon and I) reported our findings to Arnie at the end of the day, thoroughly satisfied at having observed not one but two rarities in the space of a single field trip.

Each observation seems to bring up a whole new set of questions: How many plants do six stems of Cephalanthera represent? Based on proximity, the answer could be any number from two to six. How far does the mycorrhizal component extend? What is the mycorrhizal component, since it seems to be different in the Park than in other areas where Phantom is known to occur? Does water chemistry have any effect on Myrio's preference for growing in some meadows where its host sedge occurs and not in others? Is there a connection between the presence of certain other plants in conjunction with Myrio? Observation suggests it, but there's no proof for a link. And how do we get answers when the Park's budget is pinched so tightly that it's even unlikely the aquatics crew's broken pH meter will be replaced in the near future?

Gathering field data is a step forward in ensuring that these rare species will eventually be better understood. That's what Team Biota does. We're the "boots on the ground," ranging the places where (hopefully) few others go. Somehow when you're on your knees counting little Myrio noses or taking a photo of a Phantom, "wet, muddy and tired" just don't seem to matter.

Historically Present

Day 242: For several weeks now, Team Biota has been watching the snow melt back in anticipation of being able to time when Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae might appear in the basin where it was recorded in 1948. For those of you unfamiliar with backcountry travel in the shoulder season, melt-out isn't like the rolling back of a blanket. It's more like a major moth infestation eating away at that same blanket, holes appearing here and there until the fabric is entirely gone. Terrain affects the rate of melt, and sun exposure may work in either of two ways: by causing a hard crust to form lengthening the duration of snow in any particular area, or by melting it. It's not easy to predict which way it will go.

We had a fairly good idea that the basin would melt out ahead of the trail which accesses the general area. In other words, we knew we'd have to travel on a fabric of snow in order to reach the appropriate moth-hole. There, another factor comes into play: cross-country travel. At this time of year, snow travel off-trail poses a number of risks such as pools of meltwater or streams concealed below a fragile surface layer, or the dreaded "tree-well," an area of melt around a tree trunk or fallen log. Snow mats down flexible young trees like alders, pins them down until the spring-loaded branches trip like a mousetrap as soon as a hiker steps on the release point. In this case, we got lucky. The snow was sufficiently deep to allow us to skim over the tops of the tangled trees once we left the trail.

The basin was almost fully melted out. We performed an inch-by-inch survey of the section where Myrio had been present two years ago and found about thirty specimens. Then I circled around to the northwest edge and began working through the basin from tree-line down. Almost immediately, I found one Myrio and then another and another and another. As I shouted out the numbers in the growing census, Joe made his way up a small log which was almost completely grown over by meadow vegetation. I heard his excited call: "Got one...no, two. There's another one! There's a cluster of four, no, five-six-SEVEN!" Meanwhile, I was keeping count, "That makes 51, 52, 53, 57, 58-59-60!" By the time we called it quits, we'd raised the total to 88, but even more thrilling was seeing that they weren't confined to one narrow band. They were all over the place!

Needless to say, this was an exciting field trip. Arnie wasn't in the office when I reported back and returned his radio, but this morning, I gave him the news. Now that we've recorded occurrences in both of the known locations, we'll be expanding our search to other potential sedge meadows. The hunt for Myrio continues!

Myriad Myrios

Day 230: The Myriosclerotinia head-count jumped from seven to 65 in the space of a week at Site 1, but snow cover thwarted Team Biota's plans to visit Site 2 and kept us from checking another potential location. That said, Site 1 contains two separate plots where this rare and short-lived cup-fungus occurs. The second plot yielded up only a few as yet. On this occasion, we flagged each one for a long-view photo, measured water temperatures and dimensions of the larger cups. The following day, another Park colleague and I returned to take specimens of the sedge and sphagnum, and were surprised to find that the census had diminished by over half in a mere 24 hours. Were the missing fungi eaten by some critter? Was our failure to find them due to brighter light? Or was their absence simply part of their ephemeral nature? So many questions, and so few days in which to find clues or answers!

A Myrio Of Rare Device

Day 221: Most of my readers will be familiar with these inconspicuous but very special little fungi from earlier entries in my blog. However, if you happen to have missed the fanfare, this is Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae, a critter which is rare world-wide not only as a species but as a genus. In 2016, my botany partner Joe Dreimiller and I found them in Mount Rainier National Park where they had only been recorded once previously in a different location in 1948. After some substantial research into the species' preferred habitat and the historical record, we were able to locate the 1948 site and found them present there as well. Since then, the Hunt for Myriosclerotinia has become an annual project for Team Biota under the aegis of the Park's Natural Resources division.

Last year, we found a record number in "our" site, but none in the historic site. Of even greater importance was the discovery of a specimen still attached to its host. Our Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson and I spent the remainder of that day dissecting it to reveal the knobby sclerotium characteristic of the species. At that point, any doubts about correct identification evaporated.

Today, Joe made a preliminary foray to "our" location and after an hour and a half of searching, returned to Longmire to report to me that he had found a single specimen. I dropped what I was doing, grabbed a radio, let a confidant know where we were headed and returned to the site. Over the course of the next hour of slopping about in snow melt, we found a total of seven cups. Not bad for a start to the season!

Rare Abundance

Day 253: The count of "noses" has now passed the century mark at Site A, as many as 14 specimens of Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae occuring in a single tight grouping. Out of concern for the species, our trips into the area will be restricted to no more than once a week. These excursions will be limited to as few members of the team as is reasonable to allow study of the progression of growth and to monitor the survival rate. Already we have noted that many of the smaller specimens have disappeared, leaving no clues to their fate behind them. Were they eaten by something? If so, what? Or did they disperse their spores and deteriorate rapidly as part of the reproductive process? Some cups are growing, and although none yet matches the size of the larger examples from our observations in 2016, several seem well on their way. Site B is as yet unobtainable, but I am anxious to see if it also produces an abundance of this rarity.

An Historic Day

Day 243: You see before you the portrait and moment of scientific discovery. Yesterday was an historic day. Team Biota isolated a heretofore unrecorded host Carex (sedge) for our rare friend, Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae.

So momentous was this discovery that we made a trip out to a point where we could contact Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson by phone. When he answered, I announced without preamble, "We've got the sedge!" He immediately dropped what he was doing and drove an hour to meet us at the site. Ankle-deep in snowmelt water and under a penetrating rain, Arnie and I obtained three juvenile specimens from the 42 inventoried on this trip, a painful but necessary sacrifice in the name of science. One was preserved with the Carex still attached, and the fungus' tell-tale knobby and diagnostic sclerotium visible.

Arnie was unable to identify the specific Carex in the field, but of the known hosts for Myrio, only one occurs in the Park. That host does not grow at this site. In and of itself, Myrio was a signal discovery; documenting it on a new host is emphatically more significant.

I am enormously grateful to my companions in Team Biota Joe and Sharon Dreimiller for their field-work in inventorying Myrio despite the unfavourable weather, and for providing this photo of a couple of soggy but very happy scientists.

Counting Noses

Day 235: My readers may recall that about this time last year, I returned home from a swamp expedition with photos of a mystery fungus, and that after two weeks or so of referring it to one expert after another across the globe, it was determined that it was a rare species (Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae) and further, that even the genus was considered rare worldwide. As such, the find marked the undisputable apex of my history as a botanist, and I can't imagine what could top it.

This species had been reported as occurring in the Park, but the only record was contained on a 1948 herbarium card which cited it as having been found in an entirely different location. My companions in Team Biota Joe and Sharon Dreimiller and I set about trying to find the 1948 location immediately. We were successful, and between the two sites, we documented 64 specimens in 2016.

These fungi are extraordinarily ephemeral as we discovered on subsequent trips. Here today and gone tomorrow, we knew that our chances of finding them again in 2017 would be governed by some very precise timing. We have been monitoring Site A for several weeks (the second location still being under several feet of snow), and yesterday, the three of us sallied forth through soaky-wet snowmelt meadow and emerged victorious with a total of TEN examples recorded for posterity by multiple cameras. The newly-emerged specimens are as yet quite small, the three in the upper photo the most well-developed. The smallest was hardly larger than a straight pin. The rest of our happy family can be seen in the collage below. The little guy is just right of the three in the top left image, about a third the height of the one immediately to its left.

Team Biota doesn't usually bring home the bacon in quite such grand style, although we do turn up a number of botanical rarities or new locations for uncommon plants almost every time we go out. Yesterday's tally was not limited to Myrio by any means, and over the next few days, I'll be bringing you more Park peculiarities.

Finding Myriosclerotinia Caricis-ampullaceae

Day 253: In a paper published in Vienna in January 1996, Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae is referred to as "very rare," and goes on to describe it as occurring on two species of Carex, C. lasiocarpa and C. rostrata. The latter Carex is included in many PNW field guides, but there is some confusion regarding the sedges, and whether or not our Mount Rainier beaked sedge is Carex rostrata or Carex utriculata is a subject open for debate among botanists. This information opens the question of whether or not our discovery of the fungus shows a heretofore unrecorded host, or whether it could be a local subspecies. DNA research shows that specimens taken in Europe (notably from Finland, Sweden, Belgium and Czechoslovakia) are identical to those found in the US and Canada. We must also consider that the Carex host recorded in 1985 and detailed in the paper might have been misidentified. One question generates another, which in turn gives rise to many more. Oh, to have another fifty years to find the answers!

Joe And Myriosclerotinia

Day 252: Joe dropped me off about twenty minutes ago and is en route home as I write this, and I think neither of us will sleep a wink tonight. Our primary goal for the day was to bushwhack into the site at which in 1948 Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae was last seen in Mount Rainier National Park. We had noted a small clearing in which Carex was growing, a known host for this rare species. A narrow stream of trickling water ran through the center of the mini-meadow, so we began patrolling its edges with our eyes peeled for even the smallest cup. Joe went up a secondary stream which fed into the main flow and was about fifty feet away when I suddenly shouted, "Oh, my gawd, I've got one!" I honestly had had no expectations of success, and immediately pulled out my GPS to mark the location. I got down on my knees and began taking photos from different angles, and in viewing my specimen from the side, I saw two more near it. Then the hunt began in earnest, Joe on one side of the stream and me on the other. In the course of the next hour or so, we found a grand total of fifty-one specimens. Although none were as large as the ones we had found in the first location on June 2, these appeared to be newly emergent and still growing. Many were only about 3 mm. in diameter. As we studied the area for clues into Myriosclerotinia's habitat requirements, we noted that the fungi only grew on the south bank of the stream and never more than 8 inches from moving water. All but one occurred in a strip approximately 8" x 30', and nowhere else in the meadow. Two are visible in this photo if you have keen eyes, and Joe is photographing another cluster of three hidden in the sedge. Fifty-one!!!

Myriosclerotinia Caricis-ampullaceae

Day 249: Since my botanizing partner Joe and I (Team Biota) discovered this unusual cup fungus in a snow-melt meadow in Mount Rainier National Park, a flurry of emails went out, first from Joe to a friend who is a mycologist, thence to a mycological society and further, to mycologists around the globe. The consensus is that it is Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae. This particular species is considered "very rare," but the genus is rare as well. Who would have thought that such a lowly thing could generate such interest? And who would have expected to stumble across it while hunting for rare/uncommon vascular plants?

Joe, his wife Sharon and I have made several return trips to the site over the last two weeks, and have learned that these fungi are extremely ephemeral, here today and gone tomorrow. Joe and Sharon found a few on their second trip, but none since. After a conference with the Park's Plant Ecologist earlier this week, I was authorized to take an herbarium specimen if enough examples were present. Arnie knows my feelings on collecting, and trusted me to make the critical judgment call for collection of a rare species.

I went into the meadow in full rain gear on a blustery, cold day and began searching the margins of snow-melt pools and the banks of a tiny stream, but was frustrated at having no success in finding my quarry. With additional information I had been given about the species, I examined several dozen stems and leaf sheaths of the Carex (Cotton-grass) native to the site, but found no evidence of sclerotia. It was beginning to look like my mission was going to be a bust. Then, just as I was packing up to leave the meadow, I saw something floating in the water, loose. It was a single specimen, not attached to anything, waiting to be lifted out for preservation with only minimal pangs of conscience on my part. It was in less than perfect condition, admittedly, but it would serve for DNA analysis at some future date, should the budgeting for such advanced research ever be possible.

Team Biota has another trip to the site planned, but even if this ephemeral species is done for the year, there will be other years. The last known record of it at Mount Rainier is dated 1948, and a specimen from that date is preserved in the University of Illinois herbarium. I may be dead and gone before it sprouts again, but for 2016, I was there. I saw it. A solitary specimen is drying on my desk as I write this. I have a feeling the story of Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae is not at an end.

Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae

Day 235: Updating this: Originally identified from the photos as Myriosclerotinia dennisii by one mycologist, this specimen was referred out by my botany partner Joe to another mycologist who in turn brought in several other experts to study the images. Based on their replies (and they did not necessarily agree with each other), I am amending the identification to Sclerotinia sulcata.

Newer update: this 'shroom has gone 'round the globe! The consensus among the mycological community is that it is in fact Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae, a rather rare species globally and only recorded in Mount Rainier National Park in 1948. The 1948 specimen is in the University of Illinois herbarium.

Another score by "Team Biota" (Joe and Crow), several dozen were found growing at the edge of a small seasonal pool in the Hudsonsian zone, some with their feet in the water. The height of the tallest was about 5", a 1" cup wobbling on a narrow stipe surrounded by adjacent grass. The others were in various stages of development, and those with larger cups had a tendency to fall over when the support of the grass was removed. The flesh was very thin and brittle, textured with depressions which brought to mind of the hammered metal cookware of the 1950s. Definitely one of the oddest "Freaky Fungi" in Crow's Catalogue, I'm grateful to Joe for tracking down the identity of this unusual 'shroom.