What do tree ear mushrooms have in common with my ears? If you ask my wife she’ll tell ya they both grow on dead wood and hear about equally.

Tree ear mushrooms have a gelatinous, rubbery texture with little to no taste. (or so I’ve read, I don’t put fungus in my mouth). They’re grown commercially and often used in oriental soups. If you look you can also find dried wood-ear mushrooms for sale on-line. When re-hydrated they regain their gummi-bear texture.

Auricularia auricula

From mushroom

After the recent rain and cool temps I could have harvested a couple of pounds of fresh ears today. They seemed to be everywhere I looked in the old hemlock woods. Even if I did bring some home my wife wouldn’t have put any in today’s soup. She knows better than to trust my mushroom identification skills but I’m pretty certain I got the name of this jelly mushroom correct.

This photo from an old post illustrates the ear shape better than any of the photos I took today.

…and now for a little orange slime

We can all see they’re orange, but the common name for this slime mold is:

Yellow Fuzz Cone Slime – Hemitrichia clavata

From mushroom

About a mile away on another rotting hemlock log they were brown. I would have thunk the orange ones were the younger but the white protoplasmic ooze they from is clearly seen in the second photo. That observation makes me think the brown ones may be younger but it seems the color is more a difference between colonies rather than from age.

I’d like to go back and catch them after they ‘go to seed spore’. That’s when they resemble their common name. Yellowish fuzzy threads burst through the top and it all looks like a tiny ice cream cone gone bad.

From mushroom

These are very tiny, each ball is smaller than the head of a pin. Thank goodness they grow in such numbers. The bright orange ones can be spotted at a fair distance. I had to nearly trip over the log before seeing the brown ones.

…and now a little more fun with slime

Wolf’s Milk or Toothpaste Slime Mold.

Lycogala epidendrum

From mushroom

View more about my favorite log pimple on an old post – Toothpaste Slime Mold.
The photos are much better on that post. I hope you can stomach them.

note: the brown – yellow fuzz cone slime is all over my screen.
I just switched desktop backgrounds

Goldenrod is one of my favorite wildflowers. Late summer brings fields of yellow filled with predators. Among the flowers hides small sizes with big surprises and it doesn’t take long to find one. Finding a successful hunter just takes a little more time.

It must have come as a big surprise when the spider introduced itself to the bee.

Turkey Surprise
Stalking turkeys is tough. There are far too many eyes in a flock to sneak up on them. The flock knew I was around. We had spotted each other at a long distance and they immediately started to move off.

Movement catches the eye. I would never have known the frog was there if it hadn’t moved.
Too late to hide from my camera now.

Nothing unexpected about finding mature puffballs on a log.

What happens when you poke a dried puffball filled with spores? I got lucky and got a semi-focused photo of the spores ejected. They disperse rapidly and trying to keep the camera steady in one hand while poking with the other is tough. It took a number of tries and by the time I was done there must have been millions of spores floating around.

I know there’s something else but can’t seem to put my finger on it.

Oh yea, this will be the second time I posted my spore finger.

Mushroom madness continues. It may stink but no one can say it’s not elegant.
Yesterday’s wanderings brought me to my first encounter with an Elegant Stinkhorn.

Elegant Stinkhorn – Mutinus elegans

Actually it was a pair, both had just passed their prime and were laying on the ground. All their essential features remained except for being erect. It stinks bulbous base color bands – white at the base turning pink/red towards the tip green slime on the stalk hole in the tip hollow structure The mushroom’s fetid odor attracts insects like flies that feed on the foul smelling slimy green spore mass. I wonder why my National Audubon field guide is mum about the edibility of this mushroom since it is not poisonous. Other sources state the immature bulb / base is edible although it’s rather tasteless. Another common name for this mushroom is ‘Devil’s Dipstick’. I don’t even want to ask what he’s checking the level of or where he’s sticking it.

finger licking good

The genus name Mutinus refers to a Roman phallic deity so it’s understandable how a very similar looking member of the family got it’s name, The Dog Stinkhorn – Mutinus caninus. Not that I pay attention to such things but it does look like a dog’s thing-a-ma-jig even without a hole at the tip.

…and now for something completely different.

I tweaked my template in order to display wider images used as desktop backgrounds. Now I can use Picasa’s link generator without having to make multiple copies of the same image in different sizes for use on the blog.

The image is linked to the full sized image on my Picasa Wallpaper Album. From there you can browse the rest of images