#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Charlie's Morning on the Charles
Moistness lingers in the woods, deepening the green of the grapevines and grass, the leaves and the needles of trees. And it's warm again, for shorts; I'm lighter out of layers. All week I'm on the hunt for fungi to photograph, looking along the sides of trails near rotting trunks of fallen trees for mushrooms springing to life. I like to see new ones, their first morning after pushing, pushing up from invisibility, with pine needles and little crumbs of soil on their heads, newly birthed, like babies. Three of my own babies pushed and pushed out of me into this world. Like these ones, so delicate, so vulnerable, so eager and innocent and unspoiled. When my third child was born, a daughter, my youngest, I said, show me the placenta, and they did. I wanted to see where she came from inside of me, my organic matter, the place we made for her to grow.
First Look
Oyster Mushroom
Suddenly, as if I'm collecting treasures on a beach, I find an oyster shell. This fungus is truly nature as art.
“Shortly after the first rains of the season, the snow-gray petal-like beginnings of P. ostreatus can be found. The autumn forest is brightened with the delicate, young, translucent, eccentrically stemmed caps cascading shelflike from the surface of dead hardwood trees. The cap is scallop shaped and has a delicate anise-like aroma not usually found in oyster mushrooms grown on artificial material. ”
Spiny Puffball Mushroom
By the railroad tracks where sunshine falls on others days, a funny looking fungus blooms white-fresh in disturbed oily soil amidst the man-laid gravel. Although they look so playful now, while young, they look less so, I learn, as they mature.
“Lycoperdon echinatum can be found either solitary or in small groups. It typically grows on the ground in deciduous forests and grassy areas, glades and pastures, on moss, humus, or woody debris. . . Fruit bodies may make their appearance anytime from the late spring to autumn. . . Older specimens are more likely to be overlooked, as their brown color blends into the surrounding environment of dead leaves and dead wood. . . The puffball is used by various species of scuttle flies (family Phoridae) as larval food.”
Unidentified
Even though I stop for a photo, these mushrooms have a creepy look and I have not been able to identify them. I neglected to examine their stalk and gills. Although some visitor seems to have dared to taste this one, it wasn't me.
All photos and words copyright Kelly DuMar, 2016, unless otherwise attributed.