by fred on September 1, 2010
In places like Colorado and parts of Canada this benign diatom has changed for the worst. Why, it is not yet known–environmental changes in the water (warmer, pH changes, more or different agricultural runoff?) or a spreading genetic mutation that is changing the behavior and growth patterns for this phytoplanktonic creature. But it bodes ill for riverine aquatic insect habitat, and from that, for trout and other fish and the aquatic food web in general.
Take a good look at Rock Snot. One at a time, Didymo is rather lovely in its little silicon pill-box container. If you discover it spreading unchecked, spreading its toilet-paper stringyness in other Southwest Virginia or Southern Appalachian clear, cold waters, follow the precautions against spread, and be sure your local Environmental Quality people know about it. Fishermen, especially, follow the guidelines in the Virginia poster to avoid bringing Didymo into the Little River system in Floyd County. Un-disenfected felt-bottom hip waders seem a major agent of spread.
Didymo (Invasive Freshwater Algae) in Virginia
Didymo in Wikipedia (see US states where it has recently spread)
Disgusting algae’s spread perplexes scientists in California
Related articles by Zemanta
by fred on August 31, 2010
Cantherellus cibarius: Edible. Choice.
Edible. Choice. So the books describe this distinctive mushroom now growing in our woods. The choice now is mine.
These specimens are in my refrigerator, awaiting a final dispensation: to eat with scrambled eggs for the experience and very few additional nutrients OR to be tossed out in the woods in the vicinity from which they were collected (about 100 feet from the house) to produce more for next year–at least for photographic purposes.
I’m confident–mostly–about the ID. There are no deadly False Chanterelles and the gills running down the stems of these fluted forms is pretty distinctive. Still…
by fred on August 31, 2010
In my theological attempts to understand the world of nature and of man, there have been and more than ever are two kinds of evil, two kinds of negative forces at work: natural evil that is the consequence of physical laws that run their course (floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, blizzard and pandemic) and sometimes there are people in the way. Stuff happens.
And there is moral evil, the consequence of choices men make when they would be like gods, and willing to attain opulent mortality or to approximate immortality at any cost to man, beast or planet. Some of the former evils now are being caused by the latter: moral evil is impacting humanity at the level of natural systems made sinister by human hubris and greed. Collateral damage on the way to the top.
The cesspool of moral evil is full to overflowing. But maybe if we rise from our lethargy, apathy and entertainment-induced numbness to finally smell the stink, we’ll become outraged enough to take up arms–figuratively, or maybe literally. More and more, I see our children and theirs in outright conflict with a system gone to the Dark Side.
The warnings ignored by BP
Egg recall: Supplier (Jack Decoster) reported to have history of health, safety violations. And no soul.
And lastly, but at the very top of the list, the Kochtopus. If you want to understand today’s aberrations of what was once called TRUTH, go behind the scenes at Koch Industries. BOOKMARK these links if you can’t check them now. Here is the apparent future of the American Corporate One Party System.
Factsheet: Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
Come Saturday Morning: Media Priorities and the Kochtopus
The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama
With apologies to Loudon Wainwright for stealing his lyrics for the title.
by fred on August 30, 2010
In Death, Life: The Fate of Fungi
The Kingdom Fungi is so varied in form that for mushrooms to be the sum total of our understanding of the group is a grotesque labeling that gives scant credit to the role these organisms play in the Bigger Economy. And yet, it’s understandable that mushrooms represent this group of living things as they are the most visible manifestation of a largely invisible life form.
Mushrooms also are so interesting in their growth habits, shapes and colors that it is easy to think of them the way we think of bird song–as being about melody, tone and a pleasant happy “singing” for our benefit. And all along, the Fungal Way is about dissolving their host organism–which is usually but not always dead already–like this maple tree.The fact that we find some of them interesting, lovely or edible is neither here nor there from the Fungal point of view.
I cut off the forks and branches from the top 30 feet of this fallen hardwood a few years back, and many BTU’s of firewood energy warmed my home and then escaped up the smoke stack or radiated into space from our walls. The rest of the trunk still on the ground will yield an equal amount of energy that will go into producing fungal threads that permeate these hundreds of pounds of cellulose. Here, where the thousands of miles of fungal threads contact the outer world in its orange papery form, spores from that maple-digesting mycelium will launch out to find other fallen but not consumed logs in other forests.
Still, knowing this feeding-on-death job description for Fungi, I do enjoy wallowing about on our hillside for Fungus Glamor Shots. More to come. Headed out now for some chanterelles spotted on this morning’s dog walk.
by fred on August 29, 2010
The outward expression of an inner fungal desire
I am, unfortunately, unable to say with absolute certainty which Boletus edulis-like mushroom we have growing in such great profusion and to such size on our hillside. (This one was almost 6″ across.) They look so like pedestalled loaves of bread that their fresh-smelling white flesh seems destined to be eaten and enjoyed, but alas–not by me. Even though…
…all mushrooms are edible. Once.
by fred on August 28, 2010
Moss capsules don't simply split open: they explode!
… the divers ways Nature has concocted to get her work done.
Only recently, complete with video documentation, the problem of dispersing moss spores beyond the stagnant air of the forest floor has come to light.
And it turns out, the common sphagnum mosses SHOOT their spores under great pressure into the “turbulent boundary layer” where the probability of long-distance transport goes up considerably.
On sunny days as the spore-loaded “capsule” dries, pressures build up to create an “air gun” effect that shoots a vortex cloud of spores several inches up into the moving air.
This is the kind of “plants are really alive” support I would have loved to have back when my students thought of plants as second-class citizens of the living world.
by fred on August 27, 2010
Alien invaders: Earth Life-form or Vogon BioProbe?
…with the spores of mushrooms.
I’ll be heading out after sun-up (the local sun-up when it peaks over our ridge about 9 am) for Fungus Glamor Shots. And maybe some foraging for edibles.
Some of the amanitas that arise from ornate beginnings like the one you see here will go on to grow almost a foot tall and about that wide across the caps.
There are hundreds of chanterelles, but the bright orange-red ones, which while edible, are apparently nothing to write home about, more to be added to an egg dish for the color than the taste. They are showy, though, speckling the drab slope with an uncommonly brilliant accent of red.
by fred on August 24, 2010
Kevin Hamed is a regular participant and field trip leader at the Mt. Rogers Naturalist Rally, and presented a great Friday evening program this past May, highlighting both the wonderful diversity and the real threats to the continued existence of the southern Appalachian’s mountain salamanders. Read more in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
