Toasted buns, lipstick and warty flowers

North of Boundary Bay beach, the sand gives way to salt marsh and mud flats. At the highest water level, a wide swath of rotting logs has collected at the foot of the dike. We took a closer look at the logs yesterday afternoon.


The blue hills in the distance are on the other side of the bay.

It looks barren, doesn't it? Up close, though, we find tiny "gardens" in crevices on top of the logs.


So many tiny treasures!


A true moss, possibly a Haircap moss. Under 2 inches tall.


Even smaller; cladonia lichen. Some variety of pixie cup, maybe.


Zooming 'way in, I can see that they are like little tubes, with the full-size ones flared out at the top. Compare them to these:


More like little goblets, and very warty. Two kinds of moss, yellow and green, make a ground cover.


And lipstick cladonia. Pucker up!

And doesn't this look like a toasted bun?


Some kind of polypore. This is the upper side. Silly me, I forgot to check the bottoms.

Tread softly.
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