Findings

Miscellaneous sightings from June wanderings. From top: self-portrait with kodama; white morph of pink lady's-slipper; trailside shrine with Buddhas and rabies tag; forest fungi.

In the clearing

The grass may not always be greener, but with mushrooms it seems to be a different story. It's been a dreadful year for fungi-spotting where I live (too dry), but whenever I go away they seem to be abundant everywhere else. These specimens, from a brief field trip to New Hampshire, were found in an area of scrubby woodland along a rarely-used trail.

Amanita is an interesting and often photogenic genus, with the classic "toadstool" appearance. Some species are regarded as choice edibles (by braver souls than I), others are deadly, and one, the "fly agaric," is a notorious hallucinogen with an alleged role in shamanism and religion. They can be hard to tell apart and I'm not quite sure which Amanita these are, but it was a pleasant surprise to come across them.

Halloween, 2019

On this rainy October morning, a reminder that the work of transforming dead matter into life (and vice versa) never stops.

Out with the Old Year

The committee for 2018 has officially concluded its final report. And good-bye to all that.

Life force

Images for a prospective re-reading of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, July 2018.

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

Brown study

It's drizzling today as I write these words, but the woods have been dry for weeks, and with the days getting shorter and the temperatures marginally colder there hasn't been much new to see. At the halfway point of a two-hour walk I found these healthy specimens of Ischnoderma resinosum, commonly known as the resinous polypore. I'm told it's edible in the early stages, but I don't forage; I'm happy just to enjoy the rich earth-tones and textures and know that the woods still have a few sights to offer before winter shuts down the show.

The Coral Garden of the Forest

Clavulinopsis

Coral reefs aren't doing all that well these days, and in any case there are none within range of a day trip where I live, but on the other hand we have these coral and club fungi, which seemingly mimic some of the same shapes and colors.

These species aren't particularly rare, but on the other hand they're easily overlooked. Most of these examples were found in one small area a bit off the trail. The deer, which are plentiful in these woods, seem to have stripped off the undergrowth from this particular patch of ground, which just makes the fungi easier to spot.

In Color (Spencer Holst)

"On moonless nights he walks over the oozy bog in snowshoes taking time exposures in color of luminous mushrooms. It is the police chief's son." — Spencer Holst

Poems in their kind

Ramaria

Amanita

Russula parvovirescens

Oct. 10, 1858. The simplest and most lumpish fungus has a peculiar interest for us, compared with a mere mass of earth, because it is so obviously organic and related to ourselves, however remote. It is the expression of an idea, growth according to a law, matter not dormant, not raw, but inspired, appropriated by spirit. If I take up a handful of earth, however separately interesting the particles may be, their relation to one another appears to be that of mere juxtaposition generally. I might have thrown them together thus. But the humblest fungus betrays a life akin to my own. It is a successful poem in its kind. There is suggested something superior to any particle of matter in the idea or mind which uses and arranges the particles.

— Henry David Thoreau, Journal

Mycena leaiana or Galerina marginata?

Artomyces pyxidatus?

Phallus

Cortinarius iodes?

Possibly Amanita amerirubescens

Lycoperdon perlatum

Humidicutis marginata