Biosheen on Wetlands

During the first couple of weeks of November, the surface of the water was covered with a thin film that had become fractured and had a colorful sheen suggestive of an oily substance.

One way biological surface sheens can occur is the result of bacteria decomposing organic matter. Places like the wetlands become a suitable environment for bacteria to flourish because the flow of water is very low or not at all which can lead to low levels of oxygen in the water. With the heaps of newly added leaves from deciduous trees and shrubs growing in the wetlands, the perfect, soupy environment has been created to break down all this plant material and create a biosheen.

A biological sheen can appear similar to a sheen caused by petroleum. To tell the difference, a biological sheen breaks into irregular or jagged edges when the surface of the water is disturbed and petroleum sheens stays together in a slick.

After I made time to do a little research on the phenomenon, I went back to area to investigate if it felt oily, had an odor, etc. Disappointingly, I found that it had completely disappeared. I stood there wondering about it and wished I had been more curious earlier. Where did it go? Why was its presence so brief? Did it dissovle? Did another organism eat it?

I have been looking around the internet and haven’t come across more specifics on how biosheens are created as a byproduct of decomposition and more details of their makeup. I will leave it there at that moment as I continue to solve this puzzle.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.

Coyote Scat - Grapes?

On the road through the meadow, I came across some coyote scat that blended in well with gravel surface. I was a little disappointed to see that they changed their diet, and I wasn’t seeing any more of the bright orange apple scat. The menu appears to have switched over as the apples ran out, now it appears that they are eating grapes. There is a vineyard on the other side of the river from the arboretum. The water is still pretty shallow and the current isn’t very swift so they could easily cross, or they could always use the bridge.

Coyotes are opportunistic predators that eat a wide variety of foods that includes lots of fruits. When I found the apple scat, it was interesting to see sizable chunks of apple fairly undigested. In this pile of scat, I found a berry that had been swallowed, passed through the coyote’s digestion system and out the other side as a whole grape! I rolled it out of the scat and realized that somehow it hadn’t been smashed or punctured, which doesn’t seem possible. In one of the photos below, I rolled the grape over to the side and put a couple of seeds beside it. The arboretum caretakers Patrick and Conner came by as I was investigating the scat and they thought it looked like grapes in the scat too. Patrick thought I should go over to the vineyard and see what kind of grapes are growing and compare them. That’s a good idea. Afterwards, I gently pushed on the berry with a stick. It popped and the juice oozed out with a couple of seeds. I wondered what surprises might show up next in the coyote scat. Do coyotes eat rosehips?

Pholiota Mushroom

This cluster of golden mushrooms vibrantly glowed in the afternoon sun this fall. They were popping out of the side of a willow tree growing in the wetlands. Its sunny, yellow-orange cap was adorned with orange scales and was moist and sticky. This gelatinous quality of the cap was referred to as viscid in the mushroom guides I have. Underneath, it had wonderful gills radiating out from a scaly stalk.

This mushroom is classified as a saprobe—a group of fungi that act as decomposers. They get their nutrients from feeding on dead and decaying wood, leaves, litter, and other organic matter. It was interesting to see them growing from the sturdy trunk of a live tree. I wondered if a mischievous forest gnome had glued the stalks to the side of the tree. Later, I read that some of the species of Pholiota grow on live trees. That said, farther up the tree on the end, it was damaged and decaying which maybe has worked its way down into the center of the tree where these mushrooms were emanating.

Identifying mushrooms is tricky business. Every time I read about them, the guide books refer to look-alikes and needing to look at spores along with other factors such as habitat, time of year, etc. So I only feel comfortable identifying this one down to the genus Pholiota.

I have been struck by the abundance and variety of mushrooms this year. I wondered if the weather conditions this year had brought forth more mushrooms. This seemingly would make it easier to notice ones that are usually there this time of year because they are in greater numbers. Either way, I am especially enjoying encountering them throughout the landscape this fall.

Fungus Gnats

A little flurry of insects whirled upwards when I approached this mushroom to have a closer look. I sat down for a few moments and they settled back down. I had heard about fungus gnats before and I wondered if these tiny insects on this mushroom could be them. As I attempted to take a few photos, I realized that they weren’t all the same. Maybe I found a tiny mixed flock of gnats just like small songbirds form in the winter. As I sit here at my desk trying to discover what these tiny creatures are, I realized that identifying small insects is challenging. So for now, I have decided to let them flit around in my curiosity and let them settle in the not sure category.

That said, I will give you a little information on what I learned about fungus gnats. They are decomposers and help to recycle nutrients back into the ecosystem. In their larval stage, they consume things such as fungi, algae, root hairs, and decaying plant matter in the soil. The adult fungus gnats eat very little, only consuming water or plant nectar. The adults are drawn to mushrooms because of the ideal, damp habitat for reproduction. It provides for a suitable place to lay their eggs and have the larvae hatch in a moist environment rich in organic material in the soil to feed upon. Fungus gnats also provide a food source for animals such as birds like all of the kinglets here at the arboretum for the winter.

Interestingly, when investing many insects, much of the information out there on the internet begins with defining them based on if they are “harmful” or “beneficial.” In other words, do they “damage” plants that people are trying to grow for food, clothes, housing, such as, apples, cotton, or trees, or are they “helpful” in eating these “harmful” insects. I read that fungus gnats can infest greenhouses or mushroom operations but I didn’t see it mentioned happening out in nature.

We need to start shifting back to the paradigm of living in harmony with the earth where all life is respected. Where we are filled with thanksgiving, wonder, curiosity, and awe at all of the beauty and diversity of life. Where we see ourselves as a part of nature and its caretakers for future generations. Thank you to all the people out with there trying to make it happen. Thank you for reading my blog.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I hope to see you out there!

Hare's Foot Inkcap

There have been heaps of these mushrooms growing out of a blanket of wood chips that was scattered on the ground behind the White Oak Pavilion during the cleanup process after the ice storm a couple of years ago. I am really new at trying to identify mushrooms and many can only be reliably separated with microscopic examination. I think these are hare’s foot inky caps, Coprinopsis lagopus, because they are a common mushroom known for appearing in urban settings on wood chips and they fit the description and match the photos in the field guide. As it first emerges, it looks like a hare’s foot, but it quickly loses that fuzzy resemblance. I generally saw them last only for about a day or less as they quickly mature and turn into a black, ink-like mass.

In Mushrooms Demystified David Arora says this about inky cap mushrooms:
”MEMBERS of this genus are called inky caps because the gills and often the cap digest themselves at maturity, turning into an inky black fluid that drips to the ground. The autodigestion or deliquescing of the gills plus the black spore print are the main diagnostic features of Coprinus… The autodigestion process is a unique method of spore dispersal that should not be confused with the normal process of decay that occurs in most mushrooms. Rather than maturing at an even rate, the spores near the margin of the cap ripen first. Enzymes are simultaneously released which dissolve the surrounding tissue, causing the edge of the cap to spread out and curl back. This pulls the gills apart, enabling the spores to be discharged into the air…”

The edition of Mushrooms Demystified that I quoted is from 1986. Due to recent DNA studies, the genus of mushrooms Coprinus has been split into four genera: Coprinus, Parasola, Coprinopsis, and Coprinellus. At the time I guess it made sense to group of all these mushrooms together based on this characteristic process of spore dispersal as the mushrooms matured and turned into an inky substance.

Inky caps are saprotrophs which are organisms that derive nutrients by decomposing dead or decaying organic matter. They are essential for a healthy ecosystem in recycling nutrients back into the soil for other organisms to use.

I loved seeing all of the beautiful forms that this mushroom underwent as it quickly grew and matured. Check out all of the photos I took below over a couple weeks of returning to this spot over and over.

Resources
Arora, David. Mushrooms Demystified: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fleshy Fungi. Second edition, Ten Speed Press, 1986. K10plus ISBN.

Coprinoid Mushrooms: The Inky Caps (MushroomExpert.Com). https://www.mushroomexpert.com/coprinoid.html. Accessed 19 Nov. 2025.

Trudell, Steve, et al. Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest. Timber Press, 2009. Timber Press Field Guide. Open WorldCat.

Fruiting Fertile Earth

The essence of the earth is flowing out of the center of this mushroom cap with its rich, fertile brown. A fruiting body conjured up by the spirit of the rain—a reminder of a wondrous, subterranean world. Small creatures gathered under its umbrella. Had they come to mingle and dine, to give thanks to the mystery of life and to honor Mother Nature’s wellspring of beauty?

California Poppy Fungus

Upon seeing the orange peel fungus, a friend of mine thought that it looked like a California poppy flower blooming out of the ground. I agree. Lots of organisms in nature have multiple common names, and I think California poppy fungus would be an apt name to add to the list. They are both in bloom at the moment at the arboretum and have a beautiful orange glow in the afternoon sun.

Thimbleberry Gall Wasp

While out walking in the arboretum the other day, I got caught in a little eddy of flitting and chirping. I was on the pond lily trail and a mixed flock of birds was excitedly gobbling down woolly aphids. There were chickadees, ruby-crowned and golden-crowned kinglets, brown creepers and Bewick’s wrens. As I turned to watch a ruby-crowned kinglet bouncing between the branches near the ground, I noticed a little knobby knuckle on a small stem. It was firm and woody and had small holes on its surface as if an insect had chewed its way out. As I looked closer at the surrounding vegetation, I saw a few more and realized that they were on thimbleberry stems. I looked them up to find that they were thimbleberry galls created by the wasp Diastrophus kincaidii.

I found an informative paper online written by James K. Wangberg called “Biology of the Tliimbleberry Gallmaker Diastrophus kincaidii.” It was published in 1975 in the journal The Pan-Pacific Entomologist. When writing about the life cycle of D. kincaidi, he writes that the adults emerge from the gall in the spring by chewing their way out. I cut one open to see what it looked like inside and found that it still had tiny larvae inside. When I saw this gall riddled with holes, I thought that the wasps had already left. I thought that perhaps that some of the larvae were still developing and hadn’t emerged from the gall yet. I hadn’t read Wangberg’s study yet, so I didn’t know that the adults chew their way out in the spring. So why did these galls have holes in them?

At the end of Wangberg’s article he had a section called “Insect Associates,” which states: “Ten species of parasitic hymenopterans were found associated with D. kincaidii on thimbleberry. Most are parasites of D. kincaidii but some are hyperparasites. Parasitism of D. kincaidii larvae is extensive during the summer and oftentimes only those individuals deepest within the gall tissue escape attack. The parasitic species emerge in succession throughout the summer and D. kincaidii is subject to parasitism for its entire larval life. In addition, an inquilinous weevil and an undetermined cecidomyiid midge were occasionally present within galls.”

Its a wonder that any of the original gall wasp D. kincaidii survive to adulthood with that many parasites. So were the holes created by the parasites piercing the gall and laying eggs or was it from them chewing their way out? My guess is that it was from chewing their way out. The gall is created on new, green stems and becomes woody as the season progresses into fall. I imagine the parasitic wasps pierced the gall when it was softer and green and the nice round hole was neatly made during exiting. So, are the larvae that are still inside the gall I cut open surviving D. kincaidii or one of the parasites?

I’ll leave you with a quote by Ken Kesey that is on a memorial stone at the arboretum: “The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer. They think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.”

Vocabulary
inquiline: an animal exploiting the living space of another, e.g. an insect that lays its eggs in a gall produced by another.

Resource
Wangberg, James K. “Biology of the Tliimbleberry Gallmaker Diastrophus Kincaidii.” The Pan-Pacific Entomologist, vol. 51, no. 1, Jan. 1975, pp. 39–48.
Link to article

Diversity & Beauty of Fungus

The diversity and beauty of fungus is miraculous. While walking on the hillside trail looking for Douglas-fir cone fungus Strobilurus trullisatus (Post: Douglas-fir Cone Fungus, 11/25/24), I came across this sparkling Douglas-fir cone. I knelt down on the ground to take a closer look. I magnified it with my camera and found that it was frosted with small, white cups that appeared to have tiny beads of water clinging to their surfaces. Their translucent, white bodies glowed against the dark brown scales of the cone. A fungus had found a home inside of this Douglas-fir cone and blossomed during the recent rains. It decorated its humble abode with small fairy lights to brighten our paths in the waning light and pale gray skies of fall in the Northwest. Thank you.

Flies: Syrphidae Family

Over the past couple of weeks I have been seeing tons of woolly aphids floating through the air. So I decided to follow them around to see where they were going and take a photo of one when it landed. I found some of them landing on ash branches and snapped a couple of photos.

Wait, let me back up a little. The reason I was chasing down aphids was because I came across this black and yellow fly with dark red eyes hovering around. I thought they were beautiful as they perched on vegetation in the sunlight. I was lucky enough to get a photo of one and I put the photo in iNaturalist. A list of a bunch of flies came up in the Syrphidae family. These are commonly called syrphids or hover flies. Some of the identification suggestions listed for my photo included Common Loopwing Aphideater, Western Aphideater, Black-tailed Aphideater and Bare-winged Aphideater. iNaturalist listed 10 suggestions and they all were black and yellow syrphid flies that looked very similar to me. So, I thought I would do a little reading on syrphid flies in general. I discovered that the primary diet of the larval stage of many syrphids is aphids!

The adults are not predators. Their diet mainly consists of flower nectar and pollen, consequently they are important pollinators. Finding them on flowers combined with their size and coloration, they can be mistaken for bees and wasps. Syrphid flies don’t sting or bite so this mimicry is a form of protection from predators. Also, the diet of adult syrphids can include the sugary honeydew secreted by aphids.

So, back to the beginning of this post. I followed the aphids around to see where they were going and thought I might find some syrphid flies hovering around. I did! Being that aphids are the syrphid larvae’s primary food source, they want to lay their eggs near aphids.

Syrphid flies are quick fliers and I was unable to follow them for very long as they zoomed through the landscape. So I wasn’t able to see them laying eggs. I also realized that this endeavor is probably best pursued during the warmer days of late spring and summer when I see more aphid colonies congregating on leaves and probably more syrphids nectaring nearby on flowers. Some species of syrphids overwinter as adults, but most overwinter in the larval or pupal stage in protected areas such as leaf litter. In moderate climates, they can be seen year round.

So next year I will be looking more closely and hopefully I will see the syrphids laying eggs and larvae eating aphids!

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I hope to see you out there!

Resources
Syrphid Flies. https://extension.umn.edu/beneficial-insects/syrphid-flies. Accessed 5 Nov. 2025.

Syrphid Flies | NC State Extension Publications. https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/syrphid-flies. Accessed 5 Nov. 2025.

Syrphids (Flower Flies, or Hover Flies) / Home and Landscape / UC Statewide IPM Program (UC IPM). https://ipm.ucanr.edu/natural-enemies/syrphids/#gsc.tab=0. Accessed 5 Nov. 2025.

Flicker Feathers

While picking up trash by the river, I came across a pile of flicker feathers under a small thicket of willows. It was a mix of emotions to find them—saddened to see that a beautiful bird had been killed and fascinated at the beauty and patterns of all the feathers. It was also a mystery. There were so many feathers. It was like the predator took the time to neatly pluck all of the feathers out before it ate the flicker. There wasn’t any sign of the body of the bird and there wasn’t any blood on the ground or on any of the feathers. It felt like the predator recognized the beauty of the bird and wanted to honor the life it had taken by carefully plucking the feathers to preserve their beauty.

Candle-snuff Fungus

The fruiting bodies of fungus have an unbelievable amount of diversity. With its charred, slender body and ashen-white tip, Xylaria hypoxylon is likened to the wick of a snuffed out candle.

In Mushrooms Demystified David Arora describes the fruiting body as “2-8 cm high, very tough, erect, slender, cylindrical or narrowly club-like but usually becoming anterlike (branched sparsely or forked at the tip) in age.” Its body did feel very stiff and tough to the touch which was different than what I expected. I tend to think of mushrooms as being mostly tender, so I was a little surprised by how sturdy and sinewy this one felt. The powdery white branch tips are the asexual spores and contrast beautifully with the black stalk.

David Arora describes its habitat as: “Scattered to densely gregarious or clustered on rotting logs, stumps, buried sticks, etc; widely distributed and common.” In this little patch, I found them on small sticks and on wood chips that were probably spread there during all of the chipping of branches after the ice storm a couple winters ago. This is a small mushroom and they blend in well. It took my eyes a little time to adjust to seeing them in all of the litter of fir needles, twigs, leaves, grass, and other vegetation on the ground.

Good luck on your quest to find them. I hope you are enjoying the fall.

Resources
Arora, David. Mushrooms Demystified: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fleshy Fungi. Second edition, Ten Speed Press, 1986.

Trudell, Steve, et al. Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest. Timber Press, 2009. Timber Press Field Guide.

Coyote Scat - Apples?

Coyotes are opportunistic eaters with a diverse diet that includes small rodents such as mice and voles, rabbits, birds, carrion, deer, insects, lizards, fish, fruit, seeds and grass. This varied diet depends on the time of year and ecosystem that they are inhabiting.

Over the last couple of weeks out at the arboretum I have found coyote scat that consists mainly of what appears to be apples. When I broke some apart, it was full of what looks like apple skins, chunks of undigested apple pieces, and seeds. First and foremost, I can’t help being drawn over to the bright orange glow the coyotes are contributing to the fall colors. Why is it so beautifully orange?

Its scat is prominently displayed in places like in the middle of trails, trail junctions, on roadsides, or on rocks. These locations are chosen to communicate information to other coyotes, such as marking its territory. The last photo below shows a pile of scat at the edge of the gravel road where a path comes down from the meadow. I found multiple piles of feces in this area.

Curiously, it seems like the apples were only partially digested. That might be due to the coyote’s canine teeth chomping the apple into fairly big chunks as it ate and swallowed it. Perhaps, those bigger pieces just don’t get broken down as well as it passes through the coyotes digestive tract.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.

Powder-headed Tube Lichen

While walking down the path the other day, I came across a lichen that had fallen out of a tree. It looked like a small piece of coral from the ocean with its aquamarine color and tubular, branching lobes.

I picked it up to take a look and it was papery dry and light as a feather. It seemed quite delicate, and I felt I had to handle it with care to keep from crushing it. There was a small breeze and I slightly cradled it to keep it from blowing out of my hand. The tips of the tubular lobes develop into a nodule-like head called the soralia where the powdery soredia are produced, hence the common name powder-headed tube lichen. Soredia are asexual reproductive structures that contain both the photobiont (algae or cyanobacteria) and the mycobiont (fungus). The soredia will disperse and grow into a new lichen if they land in a suitable habitat.

Rhizines are fungal filaments that function to attach and hold many lichens to their substrate and don’t have vascular capabilities like the roots in plants. The Latin name of Powder-headed Tube Lichen is Hypogymnia tubulosa. Its genus is derived from the Greek words hupó, meaning “under” and gumnós, meaning “naked.” If you look on the underside of Hypogymnia tubulosa it has a blackened, wrinkled surface that lacks rhizines which is probably what this is referring to. So far in my research, I haven’t found a description of how its underside attaches itself to a substrate like tree bark.

I found a bare spot on a tree limb and nestled it between some other lichens to hold it in place. I wanted to see if it would reattach and continue to grow.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.

Sources
“Hypogymnia.” Wikipedia, 22 Nov. 2024. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hypogymnia&oldid=1259003117.

Jackson, August. “Lichens of Mount Pisgah: A Field Guide to Select Species.” Nov. 2022, https://mountpisgaharboretum.org/wp-content/uploads/Lichen-Field-Guide.pdf.

Lichen Biology. https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/beauty/lichens/biology.shtml. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.

Southern Alligator Lizard

At the top of the zigzag trail where it comes out of the forest, the landscape opens up into a small, grassy meadow with a mix of Oregon white oaks, bigleaf maples and Douglas-firs along the edge. It is a nice transition zone where I always pause because I often see lots of birds here.

The other day I came upon a southern alligator lizard basking on the gravel path as I entered this area. I have seen one before, but this time I was struck by how long and slender its body was. With its body resting flat on the ground and its legs close to its sides, it really resembled a small snake. It also slithered off the path like a snake when I was attempting to walk around it and not disturb it after I checked it out for a little while.

The top of its body is brown with black spots that form bands, its underside is pale, and there may be white spots along its side like the one here. Along the sides of the body, between the top of the body and belly, there are small scales that create a fold that allows the body to expand. This is valuable for being able to eat large prey, puff up to appear larger when threatened, and for a pregnant female to have more space to carry her eggs.

They are found in open forested landscapes and along riparian areas too. They are active during the day and like most lizards, can often be found basking in a warm, sunny spot like a rock or pathway.

Their diet mostly consists of small invertebrates such as grasshoppers, slugs, spiders, centipedes, beetles, crickets, etc. but it will also eat bird eggs, nestlings, other lizards, and small mammals.

They can shed their tail if threatened. That said, I have seen people catch this lizard a few times and it didn’t shed its tail, but it did try to bite them. Losing their tail can save their life in the moment and isn’t harmful. That said, it can affect their overall survival. It takes time to regenerate a tail and it is where they store fat for energy. Also, their agility, speed, and balance can be impaired.

I didn’t know this until I did the research to write this post. There are two western alligator lizards, a southern and a northern. The way to tell them apart is the southern species has a yellow eye and the northern one has a dark eye.

We have a few warm, sunny afternoons ahead this week in the forecast, so keep an eye out. Good luck!

Resources
Southern Alligator Lizard | Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife. https://myodfw.com/wildlife-viewing/species/southern-alligator-lizard. Accessed 14 Oct. 2025.

Southern Alligator Lizard | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/species/elgaria-multicarinata. Accessed 14 Oct. 2025.

Acorn Weevils Exiting Acorns

Over the past couple of weeks I have had to be mindful of all of the acorns dropping off of the oak trees, not there was anything I could have done to avoid being bonked by one besides not walking under the oak trees at all. That would take all of the fun and excitement out of it and it has only happened a couple of times. I was also curious to check out the acorns impregnated by weevils. I saw one lying on the ground that had the scar from an acorn weevil laying its eggs. I flipped over to see that there were two neat, round exit holes on the other side. I decided to open the acorn to see what it looked like on the inside. It was powdery and crumbly. I started to gently stir the contents when I saw something moving in the middle. A small white grub was wriggling around. I didn’t think that there still might be one still inside. It squirmed and twisted at being disturbed and exposed to the world. It soon carried on eating the flesh of the acorn as I sat and watched it. It is fascinating that this small, white, delicate, wrinkled grub would crawl down into the soil, spin a cocoon, metamorphose, and emerge in a year or two into a furry acorn weevil. There is so much unseen wonder constantly unfolding in nature. The force of life is an incredible energy that is constantly exploding forth.

Oak Mazegill

There is an oak snag on the hillside that has these interesting mushrooms cascading down the side that appear to have been crafted by forest gnomes—they resemble the pointy hats that they wear. Underneath each one is a maze that is the entrance into their mysterious world if you know how to solve it.

In Mushrooms Demystified, David Arora calls it Thick-Walled Maze Polypore, Daedalea quercia. According to iNaturalist, this species was transferred to the genus Fomitopsis in 2024. It also has the common name Oak Mazegill.

Under habitat in Mushrooms Demystified, David writes, “Solitary or sometimes in shelving groups on dead or living hardwoods, especially oak, chestnut, and chinquapin; widely distributed, but especially common in Eastern North America. I have seen it in Northern California and Oregon, but have yet to find it in our area. It causes a brown heart rot, and the tough fruiting bodies occur year-round.”

Mushrooms can be tricky to identify, for me. I haven’t really spent that much time identifying them and getting to know them. I do find them beautiful and fascinating and they always attract my attention this time of year. After all, the mushroom festival at the arboretum is this month. In Mushrooms Demystified, David writes, “Pores usually greatly elongated and pocket- or mazelike, sometimes even forming gills; whitish to buff, tan, or dull ochre; tube walls (or “gills”) thick (1 mm or more), the spaces between them at least 1 mm broad; tubes 0.5-3 cm long, the layers not distintly stratified.” What I find curious is that they are “pocket- or mazelike, sometimes even forming gills.” I found other mushrooms growing out of the end of a fallen oak tree that had been cut to clear the path. They were similar to the ones on the snag but the pores looked more like gills. iNaturalist also suggested they were the Oak Mazegill which would align with David’s description of sometimes forming gills. I am surprised that they can form so differently, as long as they are the same species. I included an example in the last photo below. Maybe I can catch up with a mycologist at the mushroom festival and ask about it.

Resource
Arora, David. Mushrooms Demystified: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fleshy Fungi. Second edition, Ten Speed Press, 1986.

5 Years

I started this blog 5 years ago and I want to say thank you to everyone out there who has visited this site. I hope that you have been inspired to spend more time in nature. While walking around this morning at the arboretum, I heard the calls of varied thrushes cascading through the forest on the hillside. I felt lucky to have a place near my home like the arboretum. I love this time of year with the cool morning air, the clouds drifting through the sky, the delicate waning light, the dampening rain, the return of lush green moss and the sweet scent of the earth. They are a healing for my spirit. I hope everyone has a place near where they live where they can be out in nature. Happy fall!

Lace Bugs on Oregon White Oak

Some of the Oregon White Oaks out at the arboretum are infested with lace bugs. Lace bugs live on the underside where they can be protected from the weather and predators. They have a piercing-sucking mouthpart that sucks out plant juices. This causes a splotchy or stippling yellow appearance on top of the leaves. Lace bugs usually feed on their preferred host plant.

From my observations, the eggs are black and are fairly neatly laid in a small group. The excrement of the lace bugs is also black and it can be confusing to tell the difference when the leaf becomes infested and messy underneath. When the eggs hatch, the nymphs are black and spiny. Lace bugs will go through several instars before becoming adults. The adults have lace-like wings and it is where they get their common name.

I didn’t find any information that suggests that lace bugs can be harmful to the health of the trees. That said, I am sure that it does cause a little stress to the trees. I imagine there is some decline in the amount of sugars made from photosynthesis because of the yellowing of the leaves and the reduction of chlorophyll in the leaves.

When you get to this time of the year, most deciduous leaves show damage from insects or from the dryness of summer weather. The rains will be a welcome sigh of relief this week.

Pisolithus

I saw one of these and thought it was a decaying piece of wood. Then I walked past another one that was similar but was crumbling and deteriorating into a fine, powdery dust. As I was investigating these interesting forms, my friends Patrick and Nellie walked up. I showed them these intriguing objects and Patrick said they were mushrooms!

The genus Pisolithus comes from the Greek words piso, meaning pea and lith, meaning stone. These small, pea-shaped “stones” known as peridioles can be seen in younger specimens and contain the spores. As the fruiting body ages, the peridioles break down and release a dusty mass of brown spores.

As I read about this fungus, I found it confusing enough to want to not list a species. For example, in David Arora’s book Mushrooms Demystified, he has an entry for Pisolithus tinctorius in which he states at the end: “Its wide distribution and variable features have resulted in a plethora of aliases including P. arenarius, P. arrhizus, and Polysaccum picocarpium.”

The young mushrooms were unexpectedly fascinating on the inside. I cut one open and it revealed the beautiful peridioles forming rich, earthy golds, blacks, and browns. I am continually amazed at the abundance and diversity of life forms that can be found in my own “backyard” at Mt. Pisgah.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there!

Resource
Arora, David. Mushrooms Demystified: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fleshy Fungi. Second edition, Ten Speed Press, 1986.