fungus – In the Woods

“I’ve never seen this before!” exclaimed my sister Beverly, the geologist. It didn’t look like much to me but she was clearly excited by this apparently remarkable formation (above) she noticed here on her first walk in North Carolina with me. She explained to us that it is a pallid zone with a saprolite layer underneath it.

sweetgum branches and twigs under a covering of gray clouds

It was the day after Christmas, which had been “hot” with record temperatures in the 70s. But on this day it was back down in the 50s and very gray, raw and chilly. I took Beverly and her husband John down to walk at length up Bolin Creek.

the essence of marcescence (beech leaves)

I rarely find a bird to photograph on this walk because they are singing way far up in the tall trees. So I was very surprised to come across a feral muscovy duck sitting on a log in the creek, watching the world go by. He kept an eye on me, but didn’t move, as I photographed him from three different spots along the creek bank.

I haven’t seen too many squirrels this fall and winter and have been wondering why that is. This one was the only one I saw sitting still, although just a couple of others were later seen racing up the trees.

We went on to discover fungi, lichens, and unusual burls. (There are no loblolly pines in New England.)

unusual circular burl on a loblolly pine

on retracing our steps we found the muscovy duck in the water

beard lichen with apothecia
(a cup-shaped or saucer-like fungal fruiting body)

beard lichen growing with greenshield lichen (?) on a fallen branch

It was good getting out for some fresh air and a good long walk, and having the chance to show my nature-loving sister and brother-in-law a little bit of the different world down south here.

July went down as the hottest month ever recorded in North Carolina history, but what a surprise, August turned out to be the coolest August in over thirty years. With all the recent medical appointments we didn’t get out much to enjoy the fresh air, but on Labor Day we did get a chance to walk out in the woods.

We kept thinking we were hearing a creek’s water running but finally figured out it was a breeze stirring the leaves above our heads. The first autumn we were here we learned to look up if we wanted to see any leaf colors, and we applied that lesson this day, looking up to see the leaves, still in their lovely summer greens.

It was slow going and there were many stops for Tim to catch his breath, but we managed to walk three quarters of a mile and he seemed none the worse for wear after we got home. The rests gave us time to notice all sorts of little treasures on the forest floor, too.

A woman once described a friend of hers as being such a keen listener that even the trees leaned toward her, as if they were speaking their innermost secrets into her listening ears. Over the years I’ve envisioned that woman’s silence, a hearing full and open enough that the world told her its stories. The green leaves turned toward her, whispering tales of soft breezes and the murmurs of leaf against leaf.
~ Linda Hogan
(Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World)

My respiration and inspiration….the beating of my heart….the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves.
~ Walt Whitman
(Leaves of Grass)

Tag: fungus

overcast

green leaves whispering tales