Exploring Along Beaver Brook

Toward the end of November I decided to take a walk up the old abandoned road that leads through the Beaver Brook natural area in Keene. I hadn’t been there in a while and since I had just tangled with Covid I thought the slight gradient of the old road would let me gently test my lungs and make sure they were still working as they should. Surprisingly I didn’t get winded at all; good news I thought, considering all I had heard about Covid.

I saw many beautiful things there that day but I would have been happy just seeing the mosses. They always seem so much greener and more vibrant in colder weather.

The brook was rushing along, not quite as high as I had imagined it would be but still with a bit of a roar to it. It has many voices, this little brook. In summer it becomes tame and moves slowly, giggling and chuckling shyly as it spills over the rocks in its bed. In winter it often becomes nearly mute, its voice muffled by a covering of thick ice. It can still be heard, but as if from a distance. In spring and fall, due to snow melt or excessive rain it swells up and shouts, sometimes with a deafening roar. Only one thing about it never changes, and that is its beauty.

There are a few pretty views along the brook and this is one of my favorites. I hadn’t gone there that day with a blog post in mind but I had a cell phone camera and the small Olympus I use for macro photos and in the end, I was glad I had brought them.

Of course, I had to stop and see my old friend the smoky eye boulder lichen that lives here because it is a beautiful thing. Both the way the light falls on it and the color of the thallus or body of the lichen make it stand out from other examples I’ve seen. Why it has this golden, orangey brown color I don’t know, and I also don’t know why the fruiting bodies always seem so blue or lavender when they are usually gray. It has to be the special way the light falls on it in this particular spot. Seeing it again is always like finding a jewel.

The squiggly black apothecia have appeared on the script lichens, as they always seem to do in the cold weather. If you look at them extremely closely, they look like the body of the lichen has been torn or cut open, and they erupt from it rather than sitting on it. But whatever happens when they appear, they leave no trace when they disappear. If you come here in warmer months all you will find are the white / gray body of these lichens, like spots on the tree’s bark.

I stopped at what I call the boulder fall. I’ve found mosses here that I’ve never seen anywhere else.

And one of those mosses is the pretty little rose moss. This moss likes limestone and since this area isn’t rich in limestone it always leaves me guessing. Somehow two or three of the boulders must have at least some limestone in them. I first found this moss on just one stone years ago and now it is on at least three of them, so it must be happy here.

Another rare moss that grows here is the glittering wood moss, also called stair step moss because of the way new growth comes up out of the midrib of the previous year’s growth. It looks delicate but I’ve seen it encased in ice in winter and still looking fine in spring. Not surprising since it can withstand conditions in the Arctic tundra. It sparkles in the light so “glittering” is a good description.

For years I’ve thought that snow load was what made our evergreen ferns splay out on the ground but this year we have no snow and they are still hugging the ground, so that theory has to be let go of. I recently read this on Westborough Massachusetts Community Land Trust page: “When the green fronds are on the ground, warmth from the earth keeps them warmer than they would be if they stood up in the wind and cold air. The fern’s stems weaken near the ground in autumn, helping the fronds to fall over.” That does make sense but I wonder where that information originally came from. I believe the fern in the photo is a marginal wood fern, but I didn’t check for spore cases.

A big old red maple tree had fallen and someone had come along and cut off all its branches. This tree had target canker but that doesn’t kill trees, as far as I know.

Target canker won’t kill a tree but it can certainly keep one busy by causing its bark to grow in circular patterns of new, thin bark plates, which helps protect it from the canker. According to Cornell university: “A fungus invades healthy bark, killing it. During the following growing season, the tree responds with a new layer of bark and undifferentiated wood (callus) to contain the pathogen. However, in the next dormant season the pathogen breaches that barrier and kills additional bark. Over the years, this seasonal alternation of pathogen invasion and host defense response leads to development of a ‘canker’ with concentric ridges of callus tissue—a ‘target canker.’” You can see the pattern of new, thin bark plates the tree grew each year in this photo. I count at least ten, so that means this tree fought off the invader for at least ten years. There are some things which once seen can never be forgotten, and target canker is one of those.

I saw what I think was a white cheese polypore on a fallen branch. It grows on hardwood logs and causes white rot, and gets its common name from its scientific one (Tyromyces chioneus). Tyromyces means “with a cheesy consistency,” and chioneus means “snow white.” These mushrooms are big enough to be seen from a distance and when they are fresh, they have a pleasing fragrance that some think is like cheesecake. Mushroom Expert. com says it is “just about the most boring mushroom going,” but it is a winter mushroom and I’m always happy to see mushrooms in winter. There is also a blue cheese polypore and a green cheese polypore.

From boring to beautiful; this must be the most colorful display of turkey tail fungi that I’ve seen. It was beautiful, with its many different colors all in the same growth. No matter how many times I come here I always see something I’ve never seen before, and that is why it pays to revisit the same places again and again.

I was surprised to find a little ice on the ledges. It has been cold some nights but all in all this has been a very mild winter so far. I doubt there is any ice to speak of in the deep cut rail trail where ice climbers usually practice.

This is one of my favorite reasons to visit Beaver Brook; to see what I call the “disappearing waterfall,” because it only appears when we’ve had enough rain to get it going. It’s a beautiful thing and in the spring, I’ve seen people standing in line waiting to get to the spot where you can get the best photo of it.

I saw two splotches of color on the end of a log and I thought I recognized them.

As I thought, they were wrinkled crust fungi (Phlebia radiata) but they weren’t quite as colorful as others I had seen. I suspected they were young examples which might change as they aged, so I decided to return in a week to see if they had. These winter fungi are rare in my experience and well worth a second look.

This photo of a wrinkled crust fungus I took years ago shows what I was hoping to find upon my return but no, the fungi in the previous photos hadn’t changed at all. A quick online search showed that they can be very beautiful like this example or rather plain like the previous example. Like many things in nature, finding them is just a matter of being in the right place at the right time and paying attention. Unlike some fungi it’s hard to predict where or when they’ll choose to grow, though they do seem to like cold weather.

And speaking of being in the right place at the right time; as I was leaving Beaver Brook after my second look at the wrinkled crust fungi the afternoon sun decided to shine right up the brook. It was something I had never seen happen before and it seemed like a final, beautiful exclamation point to mark the end of my journey through a place filled with beauty.

Look at places no one looks at, so you can see the things no one sees.
~Mehmet Murat ildan

Thanks for coming by.

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Into the Mist

I was happy to wake up one morning and see a thick mist rolling across the landscape. This isn’t rare here but it is rare to have it happen on a day off when I have time to run out and play in it. That’s why you see so few misty blog posts here. I quickly got myself together and off I went, into the mist.

At first being in such heavy mist seemed a bit like trying to breathe under water and I wondered if my weakened lungs would stand for it, but as usual seeing the beauty of the forest took me away to that magical place where there are no cares, and I quickly forgot about breathing issues. If, when you come out of the forest, you immediately give attention to your time spent there, you find that there were no problems to solve while you were there, no yesterdays or tomorrows to worry about, only the joy of what was happening right then and there. Nothing else existed for you. This is why, I believe, people seek out wild places, and this is why people like Jane Goodall say things like “It was in the forest that I found the peace that passeth all understanding.”

And the beeches might have seemed more beautiful than you had ever imagined they could be. How could you have missed such beauty, such serenity, and such sheer joy for so long, you might wonder. Don’t wonder; just be thankful that you have found what you have, because now, as John Muir said: “Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

The sun kept trying to break through the mist and I kept trying to get a shot of it happening, but neither of us had much success.

What I believe was a crust fungus called Phlebia radiata, or wrinkled crust fungus, had formed a cup and it was holding water. In fact the mist was so thick on this day that everything was wet and dripping.

I admired the perfectly round holes an insect had made in a pine tree, which was now a log. I once knew what made these pencil size holes but I have forgotten, and it really doesn’t matter anyhow. At least to me it doesn’t matter. It might matter quite a lot to the forestry students at Yale University who come out here to practice their craft.

Wood ear fungi (Auricularia auricula-judae) listened to the silence. This “winter mushroom” is usually found on fallen branches in winter and early spring. It’s one of the jelly fungi and it feels just like your earlobe. They can have some color but these examples were fairly pale. My color finding software sees “peach puff.”

I saw that the mist seemed far off now. It wasn’t as close or as thick as when I had started.

And over there bright sunshine was falling on the beaver swamp. It was luminous, and it reminded me of the luminists; those American painters who tried to capture the quality of light.

Here is a fine example of a luminist painting. It was painted in 1875 by by Frederic Edwin Church, who called it “Autumn.” Luminism shared an interest in the quality of light with impressionism but that was about all they shared. There were a lot of technical differences like the quality of brush strokes between them, but I won’t go into all of that. Luminism lasted from about 1850 to 1870, and was concerned not only with light, but mood as well. Luminist paintings are calm and tranquil, with soft hazy skies and reflections in the water, just like what I found here in Yale Forest.

But here in Yale Forest all thoughts of Luminism quickly evaporated because the sun had won out and the misty atmosphere had left the place. I supposed I’d have to turn to the impressionists for the rest of my walk. It really is amazing how fast mist can disappear. I’ve raced up hillsides hoping to get shots of mist in the valley below, only to find no mist and the sun shining brightly when I reached the summit.

I found quite a few partridge berries (Mitchella repens) that the turkeys had missed at the the base of a tree. They are interesting so they’re worth a closer look.

What is amazing about these small berries is how a single berry originates from two flowers. The ovaries of the two flowers join and form one berry that contains 8 seeds, and the two dimples found on the berries tell the story of where the flowers once were. Partridgeberry is one of the lowest growing evergreen plants on the forest floor, hardly growing more than 3 or 4 inches high.

I saw a fungal garden growing on the end of a log.

And I saw some more pixie cup lichens forming. Isn’t it funny how you can go all of your life without seeing something but then when you finally do see it, you start seeing it everywhere?

There are still lots of fallen trees out here. The wind has really ravaged the place over the last couple of years, it seems.

But there was little wind on this day. It was still early in the morning and it was a beautiful day to be outside. I wasn’t too far from the beaver pond when I took this photo.

You have to cross what was a small stream to get to the beaver pond. It has gotten wider over the years so what I was once able to step over I now have to jump over. I’m always a little wary of jumping when I’m off in the woods alone but I came back unscathed. I’d rather jump than try to walk across on slippery rocks. I have a friend who tried that and ended up nursing cracked ribs for a few months.

I saw that someone had pulled the beaver dam apart again. This might seem cruel to some but it is neccessary when beavers build dams too near human structures. There is a busy road near here that has nearly flooded due to beaver dams, so the highway department keeps a close eye on them.

I’ve taken beaver dams apart and taking apart even a small one like this is hard work. They use stones, mud and branches to weave a very strong dam. It would easily take two men all afternoon just to do what we see here.

The stone wall going down into the beaver pond says two things; that this was once farmland and that the beavers came along after the wall was built.

The beaver pond drains off into the woods and the woods are turning into a swamp. Along this stream is where I come in spring to find the beautiful woodland horsetail (Equisetum sylvaticum.)

I also come out here to see hundreds of goldthread plants (Coptis groenlandicum) in bloom in spring. Their shiny evergreen leaves make them easy to find at any time of year.

A cinnamon fern hung on to one last leaf.

But I’m sure it must be part of this pile by now.

As I was leaving I saw an old man, asleep in a pine branch, with a jelly fungus for moustache. I took a couple of quick shots and let him sleep. I hoped his dreams were pleasant ones.

If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. ~Tecumseh, Shawnee

Thanks for coming by. I hope this post helped make your day a little brighter, and I hope everyone will have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

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A Fungal Fantasy

I’m feeling a bit cheated this year because I haven’t seen enough mushrooms to do a mushroom post. Normally by this time of year I’d have done two or three posts dedicated to mushrooms, so I’ve decided to show you the mushrooms that you can expect to find here in a normal, drought free year. These are all mushrooms that have appeared in previous posts, like the wrinkled crust fungus (Phlebia radiata) seen above. It seems to radiate out from a central point, hence the radiata part of its scientific name. They grow on logs and have no stem, gills or pores, and they don’t seem to mind cool weather. In fact every time I have seen them it has been in the colder months of the year, like right now. It’s a beautiful thing.

This little group of butter wax caps (Hygrocybe ceracea) appeared in August one year. They’re one of my favorites. I hope these and the other mushrooms that you see in this post will convince you that they can be every bit as beautiful as flowers. You just have to look a little closer to see them, that’s all.

I found this reddening lepiota (Leucoagaricus americanus) in August also, growing in a sunny meadow that had been logged. It was big; the cap must have been 4 inches across, and it was a beautiful thing. It is called reddening lepiota because it is said to turn red wherever it is touched, but since I didn’t touch it I can’t confirm that.

Young purple cort mushrooms (Cortinarius iodeoides) are very purple but lighten as they age. Squirrels and chipmunks won’t touch this one, possibly because it’s covered with a bitter slime. This slime often makes the young examples look wet. Slugs don’t have a problem eating it and I often see white trails on the caps where they have eaten through the purple coating to the white flesh below. You can just see that on the left side of this one’s cap.

Purple corts often develop white or yellow streaks as they age and this is a good way to identify them. This example looked positively psychedelic. I usually find purple corts near the end of August into early September, but this year I didn’t see a single one.

Bear’s head or lion’s mane mushroom (Hericlum americanum) is a toothed fungus that looks like a fungal waterfall.  Soft spines hang from branches that reach out from a thick central stalk. This is another color changing mushroom that goes from white to cream to brown as it ages. I find it mostly on beech logs and trees. This one was large-probably about as big as a cantaloupe. This is a late cool weather fungus. I’ve seen them in October and I’ve also found them frozen solid.

Another of my favorites is the orange mycena (Mycena leaiana.) They like to grow in clusters on the sides of hardwood logs. Its stems are sticky and if you touch them the orange color will come off on your hand. I think this is one of the most visually pleasing mushrooms. This is another late summer / early fall mushroom.

An animal had knocked over what I think was a Marasmius delectans and I found it backlit by the very dim light one cloudy afternoon.  This mushroom is closely related to the smaller pinwheel mushrooms. This one was close to the diameter of a nickel. The Marasmius part of the scientific name means “wither” or “shrivel” in Greek, and refers to the way these mushrooms shrivel in dry weather and then rehydrate when it rains. I found it in September one year and I’ve never seen another one.

One of my favorite fungal finds for this post is called the tiger’s eye mushroom (Coltricia perennis.) One reason it’s unusual is because it’s one of the only polypores with a central stem. Most polypores are bracket or shelf fungi. The concentric rings of color are also unusual and make it look like a turkey tail fungus with a stem. The cap is very thin and flat like a table, and another name for it is the fairy stool. They are very tough and leathery and can persist for quite a long time. I find them in August through October.

One of the prettiest mushrooms in the woods right now are black chanterelles (Craterellus cornucopioides.) I met a mushroom forager once who told me that this mushroom was considered a choice delicacy and at that time restaurants were paying him $50.00 per pound for them, and they’d buy all he could find. But the trouble was finding them; mushroom hunters say they are very hard to find because looking for them is like looking for black holes in the ground. Some say they can look right at them and not see them but for me they seem very easy to find, and I think that’s due to my colorblindness. I’ve read that armies keep colorblind soldiers because they can “see through” many types of camouflage, and I think that must be why I can see these mushrooms so clearly when others can’t. It might be one of the few times colorblindness has come in handy. I found these on a south facing hillside in August.

Velvet stalked fairy fan mushrooms (spathularia velutipes) look more like leaves than mushrooms to me, but they are a form of spatulate mushroom that get their name from their resemblance to a spatula. They grow on conifer logs or in conifer debris on the forest floor.  These examples grew in the packed earth beside a trail. This was the first time I’ve noticed them. This is another summer fungus that I found in August.

A jelly fungus called Calocera cornea covered this log. This tiny fungus appears on barkless, hardwood logs after heavy rains. The fruiting bodies are cylindrical like a finger coral fungus and it looks like a coral fungus, but microscopic inspection has shown it to be a jelly fungus. This photo shows only part of what covered this log. The huge numbers of what looked like tiny yellow flames licking out of the log was quite a sight.

Calocera cornea is called the small staghorn fungus, for obvious reasons. Each fruit body comes to a sharp looking point. I found these in early August after a heavy rain.

The tough cinnabar polypore (Pycnoporus Cinnabarinus) is red orange on its underside as well as its upper surface. It is considered rare and is found in North America and Europe. This was only the second time I had seen it and both times were in winter or very early spring. It is said to grow year ‘round but I’ve never found it in summer. It is also said to be somewhat hairy but I didn’t notice this. They turn white as they age and older examples look nothing like this one. This were growing on black cherry logs but they also grow on beech and poplar. I have found them in early March, covered with snow.

If you happen to see a mushroom that looks like it stuck its finger in a light socket you’re probably seeing something rarely seen. Called a “mycoparasitic mucorale,” Syzygites megalocarpes pin mold has been found on about 65 different mushrooms, but it will only appear when the temperature and humidity are absolutely what it considers perfect. It has multi branched sporangiophores that make the mushrooms it attacks look like it is having a bad hair day. This pin mold can appear overnight and starts off bright yellow, but as it ages it becomes paler until finally turning a blue gray color. It looks on the whitish side in this photo because I had to use a flash. It’s best not to get too close to these molds because inhaling their spores can make you very sick.

Something else that is rare to see is a mushroom with another fungus feeding on it, like this bolete with a mycoparasite called Syzygites megalocarpus growing on its cap. A mycoparasite is essentially a fungus that feeds on other fungi. This one has also been found on over 65 species of mushroom. It can appear overnight if heat and humidity levels are just right, and that’s exactly what this one did. You can’t plan to see something like this, you simply have to be there when it happens.

Dead man’s fingers (Xylaria polymorphaare) are a type of fungi that often look like a human finger. This one growing out of a crack in a beech log didn’t, but that was because it was a young example. They change their appearance as they age. In the final stages of their life dead man’s finger fungi darken until they turn black, and then they simply fall over and decompose. These examples grew at the base of a maple stump. It doesn’t take a very vivid imagination to see what almost look like fingernails on a couple of them. I usually find them in July and August.

The gills on the split gill fungus (Schizophyllum commune) are actually folds on its underside that split lengthwise when it dries out. The splits close over the fertile surfaces as the mushroom shrivels in dry weather. When rehydrated by rain the splits reopen, exposing the spore-producing surfaces to the air, and spores are released. Split gills grow on every continent except Antarctica and are said to be the most studied mushrooms on earth.

I loved the look of the underside of this dead split gill mushroom. I’ve heard that the underside of this fungus could be reddish but until I saw this one I had only seen them in white. These are “winter mushrooms” and I often find them very late in the year, even when there is snow on the ground.

To see small things you need to re-train your eyes. (And your mind, somewhat.) Jelly babies (Leotia lubrica) taught me that; one day I sat down on a stone to rest and looked down and there they were. I was surprised by how tiny they were, but they helped me see that forests are full of things just as small and sometimes many times smaller. You need to be ready (and able) to flatten yourself out on the forest floor to get good photos of jelly babies. These tiny mushrooms are found in July and August.

Turkey tail fungi (Trametes versicolor) are one of the most colorful fungi in the forest. They are also one of the easiest to find, because they grow in nearly every state in the country and throughout Europe, Asia. and Russia. They can also be found at any time of year, even winter.

Tiny little horsehair mushrooms (Marasmius rotula) grew on a log. These are very small things; the biggest one in this photo might be as big as a pea. Horsehair mushrooms are also called pinwheel mushrooms. Their pleated and scalloped caps always make me think of tiny Lilliputian parachutes. The shiny, hollow black stem lightens as it reaches the cap and is very coarse like horse hair, and that’s where the common name comes from. They grow in small colonies on rotting logs, stumps, and branches. Their spore release depends on plenty of moisture so look for this one after it rains. In dry weather they dehydrate into what looks like a whitish dot at the end of a black stem, but when it rains they rehydrate to release more spores. They can do this for up to three weeks. I find them anytime from July through September depending on the weather.

I think this one might be a golden coral (Ramaria aurea.) I don’t see many yellow coral mushrooms of this kind so I was happy to find it. Coral mushrooms get their common name from their resemblance to the corals found in the see. They can be very colorful.

Violet coral fungus (Clavaria zollinger) is easily the most beautiful coral fungus that I’ve ever seen. I found it in August of and the following year there it was, growing in the same spot again. Stumbling across rare beauty like this is what gets my motor running and that’s why I’m out there every day. You can lose yourself in something so beautiful and I highly recommend doing so as often as possible.

I hope you enjoyed this little fungal fantasy of things previously found. I’ve done it because I needed to see some mushrooms again and because I wanted others to want to see them too, especially the children who read this blog. The mushrooms shown here are a good representation of what you could easily find in the woods of New Hampshire. In the heat of summer, a day or two after a good rain, get into the woods and you’ll have a very good chance of finding them. If I found them you can too.

Nearness to nature keeps the spirit sensitive to impressions not commonly felt, and in touch with the unseen powers. ~Charles Eastman

Thanks for stopping in.

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Beaver Brook in Winter

It was a nice warm sunny Saturday when I set out for the Beaver Brook Natural Area in Keene and the weather people said it would be sunny all day, but as soon as I got there clouds moved in and decided to stay for a while. Actually the clouds stayed the entire time I was there and the sun didn’t show itself again until I left.

This was the only blue sky I saw the entire time I was there.

But the trail was well packed down and not really as icy as it looks here.

Beaver Brook was roaring. In the summer it giggles and chuckles along beside you but in the winter it roars, and that’s all you hear. Unless it’s covered by ice; when it’s iced over it whispers and is quieter than at any other time.

The brook hasn’t been completely iced over this winter that I’ve seen, but huge ice shelves had formed here and there. You can see how there is nothing under the shelf but air, so it walking out on it would be a foolish thing to do.

The ice shelves had teeth.

I have a lot of old friends living here along the brook, like this smoky eye boulder lichen (Porpidia albocaerulescens.) I see this lichen just about everywhere I go but nowhere else are its fruiting bodies (apothecia) so blue or its body (thallus) so golden. The gold color comes from the minerals in the stone I think, and the blue color comes from the way the light falls on the waxy coating that covers the apothecia. Whatever it is that causes the colors in this particular place, this lichen is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen and this is the only place I’ve ever seen it look like this.

I also stopped to visit the only example I’ve ever seen of stair step moss (Hylocomium splendens.) This is a boreal moss that grows quite far north into the arctic and I’ve seen it here covered with ice, but it isn’t as delicate as it looks and it always comes through winter unscathed. When it’s dry it has a shiny sheen and that’s most likely why another common name for it is glittering wood moss. New growth “steps up” off the midrib of the previous year’s growth and that’s where the “stair step” name comes from. It’s a beautiful moss and I wish I’d see more of it.

The rose moss (Rhodobryum roseum) came through winter looking fine and I was glad of that because this is the only example of it I know of. I did find another small patch on a stone in Swanzey once, but I can’t remember where. It’s nice to know there are more of them out there but I’d still have to call this moss rare. I love its little aspirin size rosettes of leaves that someone thought looked like roses. They look more like dahlias or chrysanthemums to me, but they’re beautiful no matter what we choose to call them.

There were some impressive ice formations on the ledges and I was surprised, because they don’t usually grow so big here. With the up and down weather we’ve had this year though, I probably shouldn’t be surprised by anything weather related.

Last time I came here the brook was flooding in places and it was a downright scary thing to see. The water mark on the far embankment showed just how high the water had been, and I’d guess that it was a good 6 feet higher than it was on this day. I met an old timer up here one day who told me that he had once seen the water over the old road. That’s something I hope I never see.

In places the snow had melted and revealed that there really wasn’t that much covering the road. Since we’re supposed to have warm days all week there’s a good chance that the road will be snow free this weekend.

Where the snow had melted you could see part of the old double yellow no passing lines.

Off on the side of the road a branch had fallen, and it was covered by what I thought at first was milk white, toothed polypores.

But the spore bearing surface of this fungus was more maze like than toothed, so that had me confused until I got home and was able to see the photos. After some searching I came up with what I think is a crust fungus called the common mazegill polypore (Datronia mollis.) It may be common in some places but I think this is only the second time I’ve seen it.

A little further up the road I found another fallen branch that was covered with inch in diameter, colorful crust fungi which I think were young wrinkled crust fungi (Phlebia radiata.)  These are winter mushrooms and that’s the only time I ever see them. They aren’t common; I’ve only found them three or four times. As they age the center of the fungus becomes very wrinkled, and that’s where their common name comes from.

There isn’t anything odd or rare about tinder fungi (Fomes fomentarius,) but a closer look at this one revealed something that was both odd and rare, at least in my experience.

There were squirrel teeth marks ( I think) all over one of the colored bands on it. Recently I’ve seen the same thing on a few lichens and have found that squirrels do indeed eat lichens, and I’ve seen them eating mushrooms but I’ve never seen them do this. It made me wonder if it was algae they were after, because algae grow on both lichens and fungi. I can’t imagine what else they’d get out of scraping their teeth over this fungus unless it was to keep their ever growing teeth in check. Tinder fungi are very tough and woody, so maybe the animal was simply trying to wear down its teeth.

Another fallen branch displayed what I thought from a distance were shield lichens but once I got closer I realized they weren’t anything I had ever seen.

They were obviously not lichens at all, but instead some type of hairy fungi.

They grew like bracket fungi and their spore bearing surfaces were maze like and faced outward. Each flower like cluster like the one shown above couldn’t have been more than three inches across, so they weren’t very big. They were pliable and rubbery to the touch, and felt much like an ear lobe. They look very pink to me but my color finding software tells me they’re mostly tan with some peach puff and dark salmon here and there.

They didn’t have to be big to be beautiful and I thought they were very beautiful things, but after looking through 4 mushroom books and spending several hours online I can’t find anything that even looks close to them, so they’ll have to remain a mystery for now. Maybe one of you knows their name. If so I’d love to hear from you.

A path well-traveled may still yield secrets that only one person may discover. ~Anthony T. Hincks

Thanks for coming by.

 

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Tales From The Wood (Pile)

We burn a lot of wood here in New Hampshire because with 4.8 million acres of forest it is plentiful and usually costs less than oil heat. One of the things I like about burning wood is the handling of it. Cutting, splitting and stacking means you have to handle each piece a few times, and when you do you notice things that you might have never seen while the tree was standing. The following photos are of the various things I found in this woodpile.

Black jelly drop fungi (Bulgaria inquinans) grew on an oak log. They are also called poor man’s licorice but they aren’t edible. They look and feel like black gumdrops, and for some unknown reason are almost always found on oak trees that have been felled and cut up for firewood.

Though they look like jelly fungi black jelly drops are sac fungi. Their fertile, spore bearing surface is shiny and the outside of the cups look like brown velvet. They are sometimes used for dying fabric in blacks, browns, purples and grays.

This is an example of a true jelly fungus, which is little more than a bag of water that inflates to about 60 times its dry size when it rains. If it was dry this amber jelly fungus (Exidia recisa) would be just a dark flake on the tree’s bark.  After absorbing plenty of rainwater this example was about as big as an average adult fingernail. Jelly fungi feel cool to the touch and kind of rubbery, like your ear lobe. Their spores are produced on their shiny surfaces. If you look closely at them you can see that one side is shiny and the other has more of a matte finish. I find these on oak more than other species, but sometimes on poplar and alder as well.

This brown jelly cup fungus (Peziza repanda) looked a little tattered and dirty but it’s a good example of the variety of fungi you can find on cut logs. Though it is called a jelly cup it is a sac fungus and different Peziza species can grow on wood, soil, or dung. This example is a cool weather mushroom that grows on hardwood logs or wood chips, and it is usually seen in spring and fall.  Mushroom expert Michael Kuo says brown cup fungi can be very difficult to identify.

Hairy Stereum (Stereum hirsutsm) is also called the hairy curtain crust fungus. The common name comes from the way these fungi are covered with fine velvety hairs on their upper surface when they’re young. They like to grow on fallen hardwoods and can be found just about any time of year. The color can vary but the wavy edge helps identify them. These examples were very young.

Witch’s butter on a log in a woodpile might alert you to the fact that you’ve got some soft wood mixed in with your hardwood, because this fungus usually grows on hemlock logs. You can burn soft woods like hemlock but they burn faster and don’t heat quite like hardwoods. They can also cause a lot of creosote buildup in a chimney.

Many of the logs shown in the first shot in this post were dragged. It’s a common practice to have to drag cut trees out of a forest to a landing so they can be cut into manageable pieces and loaded onto logging trucks, and when this one was dragged a woodpecker hole became filled with soil. This is a good time to mention that nearly every log shown in this post came from a tree that had something wrong with it. Woodpeckers dig holes in tree trunks to get at insects living in the tree; often carpenter ants. The ants eat the cellulose and weaken the tree, and it isn’t that unusual to find that the tree you’ve cut is completely hollow.

This example was hollowed out either by insects or heart rot cause by a fungus. Mushrooms and other fungi growing on trees is never a good sign. All of this weakens the tree and when a good wind comes along, down they go. Friends of mine just lost their barn to a hundred + year old pine tree that fell and cut the barn right in half. The tree people estimated its weight at 20 tons. That’s 40,000 pounds of wood, and we’re all very thankful that we weren’t anywhere near it when it fell. It was hollow, just like the one in the photo. It was also full of big, black carpenter ants.

This tree had a double whammy. The channels were caused by insects, probably carpenter ants, and then fungal spores got in and revealed themselves when they fruited into these little white mushrooms. It’s possible that the insects in the tree were farming this mushroom and brought parts of it into their channels to feed on. In any event this tree’s life was shortened by quite a few years. It could have stood hollow and lived on for a long time but heaven help anyone who was near it when it finally came down.

A woodpecker made two holes in this oak tree, one above the other, and as the tree tried to heal itself the holes became spoon shaped. It’s another example of what was a standing hollow tree.

Everyone knows that moss grows on trees but what everyone might not know is that many trees like this oak have channels in their bark which direct rainwater down to the tree’s roots. They can be clearly seen in this example, and so can the moss growing right beside and between them. Mosses like a lot of water and when they grow on a tree trunk they get it by growing next to these vertical streams. Do they grow on the north side of trees? Yes, and on the east, west, and south sides too; whichever is more moist.

Lichens are a common sight in woodpiles and beard lichens are very common. Often you can see them growing all up and down the trunks of trees and much like mosses, lichens grow near the channels in the bark so they can get ample moisture. I think this example is a fishbone beard lichen (Usnea filipendula,) so called because of its resemblance to the backbone of a fish. Many people seem to think that lichens will kill a tree but they are simply opportunists looking for all the rain and sunlight they can get and they just perch on trees like birds do. They take nothing from the tree, so if I pulled this one off this log and put it on a living tree it would just grow on as if nothing ever happened as long as it received the right amount of moisture and light. Lichens are virtually indestructible and that’s why some scientists say they are immortal, or as close to immortal as any living thing can be.

I think this is the start of a beautiful crust fungus called the wrinkled crust (Phlebia radiata.) These mushrooms lie flat on the wood they grow on and have no stem, gills or pores. They radiate out from a central point and can be very beautiful. The darker area on this example is where it was wet and the lighter ones where it was dry. They don’t mind cool weather; I usually find them at this time of year and I’m hoping I’ll find a few more.

I’m not a logger or an arborist so I don’t know why this log has such a dark ring just under its bark. I zoomed in on the photo and counted the rings and found that the dark ring started about 12-14 years ago. Something must have happened back then to cause the change, but I can’t guess what it was.

I do know what caused the purple staining in this log; iron, meaning it has foreign objects like screws or nails in it. Sawmills look for this kind of thing when logging trucks bring in a load of logs and they’ll reject the whole load if they see it.

Here’s an example of a foreign object embedded in a tree. In a few more years the tree would have grown over it and it never would have been seen. The only thing that would have given it away was the purple staining when the tree was cat. Nothing will destroy a saw blade or chain quicker than something like this.

If all the stars and planets are aligned perfectly and you pay close attention to your wood pile you could find something as rare and beautiful as this cobalt crust fungus (Terana caerulea) in it. This photo was taken about three years ago and I’ve been looking for this beautiful fungus ever since, but have never seen another one. This is just the time of year for it to appear, so I’ll be watching for it.

The old saying, as I’ve always heard it, says that firewood warms you three times; once when you cut it, once when you stack it, and once when you burn it, and I’d have to say that was just about right. If you dress in layers against the cold you’ll find yourself peeling them off in a hurry once you get to the wood pile. I’ve always looked at cutting and splitting wood as an enjoyable job though, and I hope this post might make the job of getting your woodshed filled just a little more enjoyable too.

The knots in the wood can’t be untied. ~Marty Rubin

Thanks for coming by.

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Porcupine Falls

I haven’t paid much attention to waterfalls this summer because of the drought and all of the dried up ponds and streams I’ve seen, but we’ve had some rain now and the weather people say the drought is easing, so I thought I’d go and see Porcupine Falls in Gilsum. It’s kind of an odd waterfall that I’ve often thought would actually look better with less water falling from it and I thought that the drought might have helped in that regard, so off I went up the old logging road that starts the trail.

Stone walls line parts of the road and speak of the history of the place. When you see stone walls it’s a fair bet that the forest was once cleared, because the stones that make up the walls were cleared from fields, not forests. This example is a tossed or thrown wall, where the stones were simply stacked loosely on top of each other without thought of form or function. Stones broke plow blades and other farm equipment and could harm horses that stumbled over them so the idea was to get rid of them as quickly and easily as possible, and piling them along your property lines made the most sense. Most of the stone walls in New Hampshire are this type.

And this view of what is left of white brook shows just how many stones there are in this part of the country. Though there was a trickle of water in the bed of the brook it didn’t give me great confidence in the possibility of seeing a waterfall.

The old logging road becomes what looks to be an even older farm road, covered with ankle deep leaves. I’ve seen a lot of deer prints here in the past but on this day the leaves made that impossible. You’d think by the way the light falls in this photo that it was late evening when I was there, but it was actually 11:00 in the morning.

There was enough water in this section of the brook to have it chuckling and giggling, as brooks do.

A teardrop of brook foam had what reminded me of a yin yang symbol in it. According to Wikipedia the yin yang symbol in Chinese culture describes “how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.” In other words, a balance between two opposites.

Split pore polypore (Schizopora paradoxa) is a common white rot crust fungus that grows on dead hardwood limbs, especially oak. They start life small and more or less round and then grow into a mass like that seen in the photo. It is said to be very drought tolerant.

The underside of the split pore crust fungus can show a wide variation in its spore bearing surfaces according to my mushroom books, and they can be circular, oblong, angular, or maze like. This example was very maze like. The variations don’t make this fungus any easier to identify.

A bridge over the brook at a point where it widens into a pool gets you to the view of the falls. Though it looks arched in this photo for some reason, it’s really as flat as a paved road.

Someone found some flat stones and made benches out of them. I sat on one for a while listening to the brook and the birds and thought about what a rare opportunity it was to sit in the middle of a brook and stay dry. When the water level returns to normal nobody will be sitting here without waders on.

Here is the view of the pool from the bridge. You can just see the stone benches at the far end. It’s a beautiful place to just sit and soak in the forest.

These well-built stone steps were built by the Jolly Rovers trail crew, which is a nonprofit organization from New York that travels throughout the country creating or improving trails. I’ve seen a few of their projects and they were high quality work so if you’re reading this and need trail work done I’d contact them. Many thanks to them for the great work they’ve done in this area.

Mica glittered on the stones throughout the area. The stones are mostly made up of feldspar, and feldspar, mica, garnet, beryllium and other minerals were once mined in Gilsum. Gilsum has a long history of mining and a geologically famous rock swap is held here each summer and attracts people from all over the world. If you want a good photographic challenge or if you just want to make yourself a little crazy, try getting a few photos of mica.

Finger size black tourmaline crystals were scattered here and there in the stones. I’ve spent many hours breaking stones open with a sledgehammer to find these crystals but there is a certain amount of luck involved, because black tourmaline is very fragile and just the vibration from the hammer hitting the stone can often shatter them into pieces. The examples shown here were all broken.

There is a well-placed bench for visitors to sit and watch the waterfall, but on this day I was the only one interested.

And that was probably because the waterfall was just a shadow of its former self. This photo makes it appear smaller than it actually was but it was still pretty anti-climactic. I think I’ve seen more water coming off my roof in a drizzle, but the pleasing sound of falling water was still there and I enjoyed hearing it.

I tried to make it look better by slowing down the shutter speed but it came out looking like a mass of broken fiber optic cables.

This photo from 2 years ago shows what Porcupine Falls normally looked like before the drought. It also shows how for a waterfall it isn’t very photogenic, and I think it’s because the water comes too fast and furious. This shot was taken in December. Maybe July would be a better time but it’s very dark here even with no leaves on the trees, and I’m not sure my camera could see the falls then. One thing that is very unusual about this waterfall is its tilt. It tilts because it follows the natural slant of the stone, which looks to be about 15-20 degrees off vertical. I don’t see many tilted waterfalls.

A nature hike wouldn’t be any fun without finding an unknown or two and this is today’s head scratcher. It’s a lichen that I’ve been trying to identify for about three years and every time I think I’ve done it I can’t ever be 100 percent sure. The closest I’ve come is the many forked Cladonia (Cladonia furcata,) but I can’t say for certain. It reminds me of a reindeer lichen because it has “that look,” and reindeer lichens are also Cladonia lichens, but the examples in the book Lichens of North America don’t look the same as this one.

The book does say that the many forked Cladonia is very changeable and can look like certain reindeer lichens, and that its appearance can even change from sun to shade. Though it isn’t rare I don’t see it very often. It grows on a thin layer of soil that has formed on stone, and though it was soft and pliable on this day in the past I’ve seen it become quite bristly and prickly when it dries out. This example grows in a spot that might get an hour of direct sunlight each day. If you know what it is I’d love to hear from you.

Young wrinkled crust fungi (Phlebia radiata) grew on a log. They have no stem, gills or pores at this stage but there were larger examples on the same log that had a very wrinkled and fleshy surface that radiated out from a central point. This fungus doesn’t seem to mind cool weather; the two or three I’ve seen have been growing at this time of year. As far as I’m concerned they took this day’s prize for the most beautiful thing I saw. They remind me of shells I might find on a tropical beach. Or maybe the snow flurries in the air today have set me to day dreaming.

If it weren’t for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song. ~Carl Perkins

Thanks for coming by. I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

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Fall Fungi

After a cold October the first week of November has seen temperatures near 70 degrees each day and this has encouraged the crop of fall mushrooms. The oyster mushrooms in the above photo grew on the underside of a fallen tree. Though they often appear to have no stem oyster mushrooms have off center stems that usually grow out of the side of the log and are hidden by the cap.

Mushrooms are often eaten by tiny worms called nematodes that live on plant and fungal tissue, but not oyster mushrooms. Scientists discovered in 1986 that oyster mushrooms “exude extracellular toxins that stun {nematode] worms, whereupon the mycelium invades its body through its orifices.” What this means is that oyster mushrooms are carnivorous. They also consume bacteria (Pseudomonas and Agrobacterium) in order to get nitrogen and protein.

One of the things that attracts me to mushrooms is the wide variety of beautiful colors and shapes they come in. I think these pink and red ones that I saw growing out of the side of a log might be clustered collybia (Gymnopus acervatus,) but I’m not certain of that. My mushroom books say that clustered collybia is a common fall mushroom but I’m not sure that I’ve seen it.

Mushroom spores are carried by the wind so it is unusual to see them dropping to the forest floor like they have in the above photo. I’ve only seen this happen twice and each time it was on a still, humid day.

Jelly fungi like the witch’s butter (Tremella mesenterica) in the above photo seem to start appearing when it gets colder in the fall and many can be found right through winter, even though they sometimes freeze solid. I almost always find them on stumps and logs; often on oak. After a rain is the best time to find them.

If you roll logs over like I do you’ll see some astoundingly colorful examples of crust fungi, like the blue example in this photo. I find this one a lot on oak logs, especially. Though I’ve tried for a year now I haven’t been able to identify it, so if you know what its name is I’d love to hear from you.

Velvet shank mushrooms (Flammulina velutipes) are a common sight in winter because they fruit very late in the season and sometimes even during a warm spell in winter. I’ve seen them a few times when there was snow on the ground and it’s always a surprise. The orange caps of these mushrooms often shade to brown in the center. The stem is covered in fine downy hairs and that’s where this mushroom’s common name comes from.

These older examples of velvet shank mushrooms on the same tree looked as if they had been dusted with confectioner’s sugar but it turned out to be mold. Nothing is wasted in nature; everything gets eaten in one way or another.

Puffballs and little brown mushrooms vie for space on a log. The mushrooms reminded me of vanilla wafer cookies.

Milk white toothed polypore (Irpex lacteus) is a crust fungus common on fallen branches and rotting logs. The teeth start life as tubes or pores in the spore bearing surface, which breaks apart with age to become tooth like as the above photo shows. As they age these “teeth” will turn brown and that’s how I usually see them. This example was very fresh.

Lemon drops (Bisporella citrina) look like tiny beads of sunshine that have been sprinkled over logs, but they are really sac fungi with stalked fruit bodies. The term “sac fungi” comes from microscopic sexual structures which resemble wineskins. There are over 64,000 different sac fungi, including cup and “ear” fungi, jelly babies, and morel mushrooms. Lemon drops start life as a tiny yellow disc and look as if they lie flat on the log, but each disc hovers just above the surface on a short stalk. As they age each disc will become cup shaped. The “citrina” part of the scientific name comes from the Latin citrin, and means “lemon yellow.” The smaller ones in the above photo are barely as large as a period made by a pencil on paper.

At first I thought this was some kind of strange crust fungus but as I looked closer I realized that it had to be a slime mold, which I don’t usually find this late in the year. After some digging I found that it is called the yellow-fuzz cone slime mold (Hemitrichia clavata.) The fruiting bodies of this slime mold open into goblet shaped cups filled with yellowish fuzzy threads which makes the mass look like felt fabric. Though it appears very orange to me my color finding software tells me that it is indeed yellow. Other examples I’ve seen in the past have been bright, lemon yellow.

I don’t know the name of this tiny mushroom I saw growing on a twig but its shape reminded me of the beautiful dome on the Taj Mahal in India. Wouldn’t it be something if the idea for that type of architecture originally came from a mushroom? I’m convinced that the idea for the beautiful and ancient Chinese blue and white porcelain came from silky dogwood berries (Cornus amomum,) pleasingly dressed in the same blue and white for a short time in summer.

Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae. When mushroom spores grow they produce mycelium, which eventually produces fruit, which is the aboveground part that we see. The mycelium in the above photo grew on the underside of an oak log that was in contact with the soil. Most of the mycelium that I see are white but they are occasionally yellow like those pictured.

I think that the crust fungus in the above photo might be an example of an orange crust fungus (Stereum complicatum.) This small fungus has a smooth whitish underside with no pores. The complicatum part of the scientific name means “folded back on itself” and the above photo shows this example just starting that folding. It likes to grow on the logs of deciduous trees.

Wrinkled crust fungi (Phlebia radiata) lies flat on the wood that it grows on, much like a crustose lichen would, and radiate out from a central point. They have no stem, gills or pores and they don’t seem to mind cool weather; the two I’ve seen have been growing at this time of year. I think they’re a very beautiful mushroom and I’d like to see more of them.

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. ~Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Thanks for coming by.

 

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