Mushrooms underfoot

It always happens. I am looking for something: seaweed on the shore, starfish on pilings, rock formations, the newest flowers, you name it: I will always find something to distract me. This time, it was spiders I was seeking. I found mushrooms.

Small, very fragile mushroom With raindrops.

This one was tiny, about 2 inches tall.

At Roberts Lake, after dark, I almost stepped on a couple of large mushrooms flat on the ground. All I could see was the darker patch against the duff. The flash brought out these wonderful colours:

Ground-growing polypore

There was another, but I'm saving it for tomorrow. Because it had visitors.

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Siempre me pasa lo mismo. Salgo buscando alguna cosa, sea algas en la playa, estrellas de mar debajo del muelle, rocas o flores, o lo que sea: siempre me distraigo con algo inesperado. El otro dia buscaba arañas. Encontré hongos, y más.

Los dos primeros eran muy chiquitos, apenas unos 4 centímetros de altura. El último crecía en la tierra debajo de grandes abetos. Ya se estaba haciendo noche, y apenas lo vi como una mancha más oscura. El flash descubrió sus colores ¡tan vivos!

Hubo otro, pero lo dejo hasta mañana, porque traía visitas.

More birds' nest fungi and orange pinheads

On another swing around Tyee Spit, I stopped to examine a log I'd looked at before, to see how the mini-mushrooms are doing after the winter freeze.

Bird's nest fungus. All of them are full of "eggs".

Ready to spill out. And one is escaping.

I looked over my photos carefully, searching for "eggs" (aka periodoles) outside the cups, but found none. After they've escaped, they will break up and release the spores, which would be too small for me to find.

Orange jelly mushrooms.

These tiny orange dots are speckled on many old logs. They are not witches' butter, nor a look-alike, Dacrymyces palmatus; these are a fixed shape, whereas witches' butter is a blob. And these are all about the same size, no bigger than a dressmaker's pin head; Witches' butter gets much larger. There is a short stalk, and the cap is flattish, becoming concave as it grows.

Zooming in. 1/3 of the way up from the bottom, and 1/3 from the right, there is one seen from the side, showing the stalk.

Also present on this log, meriting another visit; tiny, dust-like greenish black fungi or lichen. Next time the sun comes out, I'll take a good lens down to examine them.

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.