Mushroom country

And more mushrooms from Cathedral Grove. The forest was dotted with them everywhere; every few steps we saw another clump.

A rotting, moss-covered stump, with its sprinkling of mushrooms.

Most of the trees on this side of the highway are Douglas firs. About 300 years ago, a forest fire downed many of them, and their enormous trunks lie on the ground, covered in a thick mossy blanket. In the space the fire opened up, big-leaf maples reach for the sunlight.

Ideal mushroom habitat; green, dim, and wet.

Mushrooms, burnt bark, and a mulch of big-leaf maple leaves.

Weeping shelf fungus, looking like a sticky bun, on the cut end of a log.

Gilled brown and beige mushroom. There's a scrap of hairy lichen here; these elastic threads hang from all the upper branches.

A similar mushroom, with a paler stalk.

More mushrooms tomorrow.