Cow pie on a stalk, Watershed Park

We often walk in the Watershed Park. It is on a steep slope, mostly second- and third-growth mixed forest, relatively un"improved", except for trails, official and kid-built. We usually stay on the main trails at the top and east side, which are more or less on the flat. Last week, we headed downhill, dodging dog-walkers.

We had seen some damage earlier, from that bad storm this winter, but here on the slope, it was much worse. Trees were down everywhere; even though workmen had been in with chainsaws, a couple of times we had to clamber over large logs blocking the path.

A sample of felled small stuff.



And a snapped and splintered cedar.



We left the trail when it turned straight downhill, and cut across the shambles. The Park was taking the mess in its stride; new growth was well on its way. By this time next year, those fallen branches will be part of the ground cover.

It is dark under the evergreens, but new branches catch stray rays of sunlight. Huckleberry? I'm not sure.


A crown of new evergreen fern:



Leafy moss, close-up:


Moss and lichens in clumps up a tree trunk:


And there were fungi, hard at work decomposing, digesting dead matter, breaking down old wood: just what this smitten forest needs. We saw small brown gilled mushrooms, collybia or mycena, corals just starting up, umpteen varieties of polypores, or shelf fungi, small and large. And these, that I managed to get photos of.

Brown cup mushrooms:


The lemon jelly or witches butter that I posted earlier:


A row of tiny toothed polypores. The "teeth" are on the bottom, and are more like short tentacles hanging down. This is a close-up; these were so tiny I didn't know they were toothed until I saw the photo.


A large "cow pie" on a short stalk. This is a woody, dry polypore, about 8 inches across.


And tapioca slime. Two photos, neither one half-way satisfactory, but between them, you can get the idea. They fall somewhere between boiled cauliflower and overcooked oatmeal.





One thing I have learned about mushrooms; they are so variable, from one site to another, that those I find here will not be the same as those just down the hill to the west, in Burns Bog. Even the look-alikes will vary on close examination. The very ground we walk on is home to "Endless Forms Most Beautiful", as Sean Carroll titled his book. Awesome!