Empty cups

 It's always exasperating, when I follow a road into the bush, to find that it has been used as an unauthorized trash dump. I was turning the car around at the end of one of these roads, this one piled with unwanted construction materials, when I noticed these mushrooms at the edge of a pile of disintegrating chipboard. (Waferboard, aka Aspenite.)

Cup fungus, probably Peziza phyllogena, aka P. badioconfusa.

Two more, growing at the edge of the chipboard.

The small mushroom above was about the diameter of a loonie, which measures 2.65 cm. across.

These are fairly common mushrooms, found throughout the continent, appearing at the end of spring or early summer.

I do wonder, though: did the spores arrive in the chipboard? I looked all over the area for others; the only ones I found were all along the edges of the lumber. There were none underneath.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Esto siempre me hace rabiar; sigo un caminito que entra al bosque, y allí encuentro un montón de basura, tirada allí sin autorización, sin respetar el medio ambiente. Al final de uno de estos, hay un depósito no oficial de materiales de construcción. Daba la vuelta en el coche, lista para regresar a la carretera, cuando vi por la ventana estos hongos en los bordes de una pila de madera aglomerada ya medio desintegrada.

Fotos: Hongos "taza", probablemente Peziza phyllogena, también conocidos como P. badioconfusa. 

El hongo pequeño en la segunda foto mide aproximadamente unos 25 cm. de diámetro.

Estos hongos son bastante comunes, apareciendo al finales de la primavera en todo el continente.

Me pregunto si las esporas llegaron en la madera, porque busqué alrededor y no los encontré en ningún sitio aparte de justo al borde de la pila.

Going dotty

I'm seeing spots before my eyes. Orange spots. I've been searching for a match to these miniature mushrooms:

Orange discs, 3 - 5 mm across, on fallen conifer branch.

Among hundreds of photos of orange and yellow blobs, plates, cups, discs, the ones that looked most like these were the Yellow Fairy Cups, Bisporella citrina. Except that the guide book, and Wikipedia, and E-Flora all said that they grow on hardwoods, deciduous trees. And this branch is definitely a conifer.

Small, slightly concave discs, bright orange, paler on the underside. There seems to be hints of a bit of stalk.

I looked again, read descriptions of anything that looked remotely similar, and came back to Yellow Fairy Cups. And found a few references to them on conifers.

E-Flora says they grow on dead hardwood, but they have one photo taken in a conifer forest. MushroomExpert.com says they're on hardwood and conifers. Central Coast Biodiversity puts them on both hardwood and conifers.

Except: nothing about fungi is ever easy. They are supposed to grow on rotting logs and stumps, not twigs. Maybe nobody told them. Or maybe they're something else altogether.

However, the search was not useless. I learned a new word. Erumpent.

bursting forth or through a surface.
"perithecia separately or collectively erumpent"

A better, more accurate word for the way fungi emerge from the wood they live in. And a reminder that these small or large "shrooms" and conks are just the fruiting bodies pushing their way out into the open, but only a small part of a large organism, sometimes spreading through a whole tree or even a whole forest.

(Also, it's a Harry Potter word: " ... a rhinoceros with a roundish body. It was a powerful creature, with a thick hide capable of repelling most curses and charms, a single long horn, and a thick tail. They were treated with great caution and respect by African wizards and witches.")

Spots on a log

Beside the path on Tyee Spit, there's a big, old log. I walk past it, barely giving it a quick glance; old wood, holes and cracks, small patches of moss, weeds trying to get a footing; nothing much to see, I think.

I was wrong. I stopped to look at a dusting of yellow jellies, and discovered much more.

Yellow and orange jellies. And three white dots.

I wondered about the white dots, and went around the log, taking photos of dots; spots too small for my eyes to distinguish details. The camera sees better than I do. See:

Bird's nest fungi!

I don't know what to call these. Cups full of rising dough?

Could this be one of the same species? And the hole where one broke off?

Could these be related to the cannonball fungus, which grows its spores in a ball and expels the whole ball with force (up to 17 ft. away) when they're ripe?

Yellow fingers. The largest is about 1/4 inch long.

A different kind of bird's nest fungi. With Cladonia lichen.

It's raining again. Cats, dogs, and the occasional small fish. And I've discovered another prime mushroom site. Rain, rain, go away! Please!

More Tyee Spit mushrooms tomorrow.

Fuzzy cups and camera selfies

Between rain and rain, the sun made a feeble attempt to break through the clouds, without much success. I followed it east, to Strathcona Dam, hoping for mushrooms. And found these, on a rotting log:

Cup mushrooms, with selfie (camera and fingers). The largest is 6 mm. across the top, about the same in height.

In situ.

Everything; the log, the ground, the trees, and the mushrooms were wet. The sun doesn't reach to this hiding place very often.

Top view, with water droplets and wet moss.

More on the dam area, tomorrow.