May05_2008

Botanical Glossary - Home - References Cited

Photos - Reflections of a partially cloudy day gives the brownish waters of Brown Lake a surreal reflecting quality as the Skookumchuk Narrows Trail passes along the southern shore.

Photos - Frames left and right: So many tree loving mosses like Isothecium Myosuroides (Cat-tail Moss) hanging from branches of fallen trees. Each of the fallen logs or branches start to decay and provide food for various mosses and fungus that helps break down the wood fiber. Coating most of the fallen branches is Cattail Moss which is one of our most common mosses and can be seen creeping in irregular branched mats on trees at sea level to middle elevations along the coast of the Pacific Northwest.

Center frame: Sphagnum Angustifolium (Yellow-green Peat Moss, Poor-fen Sphagnum) in a small mound next to the Skookumchuk Narrows Trail. This species of Peatmoss is typically small in overall size, yellow-green, slender with bushy, pompom tops. The stem leaves are small and blunt without pores of fibrils - branch leaves are slender toothed at tip, mostly colorless and transparent. Usually found in poor fen areas.

Photos - L-R - Looking around at stumps and fallen logs can be fairly rewarding for various kinds of fungus and mushrooms as the decaying wood fiber provides host to a variety of life. Inonotus Hispidus (Shaggy Polypore) - Inedible. A fan shaped cap, up to about 4 inches thick, thicker at the stalkless base. The cap is reddish, and turns darker to a brown toward the point f attachment. The surface is covered with stiff hairs. The pores are orange-red, then darker brown as it ages. It is supposed to have a mild flavor and pleasing odor but isn't a desirable edible because of its texture. It likes to grow on living deciduous trees where they have been damaged, or old dead trees including Apple, Pear, Aspen, and Mountain Ash.

This mass of white slime looks more like a spot where some one barfed beside the trail than what it really is: Brefeldia Maxima (Tapioca Slime) Touching this slime is an interesting experience. One would think that the crust is somewhat solid, but in fact is very fragile - when touched, the surface crust is easily wiped away to leave a cloudy white goo that looks a bit like silicone bathtub caulking.

Next on the list is one of my favorite fungi: Trametes Versicolor (Turkey Tail) - This is a tough, inedible, over wintering fungus that likes to grow on dead wood - Colors vary, with multicolored zones, hairy and/or smooth with yellow to white pores underneath.

Click here for more photos of Skookumchuk Narrows Park for this day.