I wimped out, but ...

They (DriveBC) said it was snowing north of here. I drove up, halfway to the northern tip of the island as the crow flies, to see it. (It wasn't. It is now.) At Hoomak Lake, I stopped, started down the steps to the lake, gave up. The wind was chilly, and it was a long way home, anyhow. But at the top step, on the old wooden rails, there were tiny mushrooms.

In a crack in the top of the 2x4 handrail. Schizophyllum sp., maybe?

On the top of a lower 2x4. Bird's nest fungus, Nidulariaceae. With a fly. The peridioles (spore containers) look like sugar cookies.

The same birds' nest, with a view of the ones on the vertical side of the board; these were all attached sideways to remain facing upwards where the rain can splash out their "cookies".

Side of the rail. There were dozens of these, all along the length of that board. With a few splashed-out peridioles. They seem to have glued themselves on wherever they landed.

Tomorrow; road pics. With some snow.

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Dijeron (DriveBC) que estaba nevando hacia el norte. Fui a ver, unos 100 kilómetros al norte, pero ya no nevaba. (Y ahora sí.) En el descanso al lado del lago Hoomak, me detuve, pensando bajar hacia el lago, tal vez seguir uno de los senderos por un rato, ya que no había nada de nieve. Y desistí; soplaba un viento helado, y (buen pretexto) quería llegar a casa antes de la puesta del sol. Pero en la madera vieja del pasamanos en el primero de los escalones bajando al agua, vi unos honguitos.

1. Tal vez sea uno de los Schizophyllum sp. Está en una grieta en la tabla 2x4 superior. Madera vieja, pudriéndose ya.
2. Hongo nido, encima de una tabla cerca del suelo, con una mosca. El hongo es uno de los Nidulariaceae. Los periodolos que contienen las esporas se parecen a galletitas de azúcar.
3. El mismo hongo nido. Se ven abajo algunos de los niditos que crecen en el plano vertical de la tabla; crecen manteniendo la boca hacia arriba, para asegurar que la lluvia pueda expulsar los periodolos.
4. El plano vertical. Hay varias docenas de estos honguitos, extendidos por toda la longitud de la tabla. Algunos de los periodolos han escapado; parece que se han fijado en el sitio donde cayeron.

Para mañana; vistas por el camino. Con un poquito de nieve.

Fuzzy log fungi

 A fallen tree in the open forest is covered, top to roots, in crowded split-gill mushrooms, all well coated with blue-green algae.

Schizophyllum commune, with moss, salal, and a shoot of trailing blackberry.

The bulk of the mushroom, the mycelium, is inside the wood. It may have been there before the tree fell.

Green algae grows best in the deep shade at the bottom of the log.

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Un árbol caído en bosque abierto, se encuentra cubierto casi por completo de los hongos Schizophyllum commune, y éstos, por su parte, llevan una capa de algas azul-verde.

En la primera foto, en la parte superior (ahora, caído como está) se ven los hongos, unos musguitos, y una rama del arbusto "salal', Gualtheria shallon, y otra, apenas abriendo sus primeras hojas, de la mora silvestre indígena.

La mayor parte del hongo, el micelio, está fuera de la vista, en el interior de la madera. Puede ser que haya invadido el árbol antes de que éste cayera.

El alga azul-verde crece mejor en la sombra.

Fuzzy feast

In a recently-logged site, now that the rains have begun in earnest, tiny, fuzzy, white mushrooms are reclaiming soggy stumps. And a flock of springtails are feasting!

Common split-gill mushroom, Schizophyllum commune. With globular springtails, probably Dicyrtominae.

Another collection, on the same stump.

The globular springtails (globular, because they're fat, round little critters) are omnivorous. Some were on the wood, and I found a few more on other stumps, but they seem to really like these mushrooms.

Springtails commonly consume fungal hyphae and spores, but also have been found to consume plant material and pollen, animal remains, colloidal materials, minerals and bacteria. (Wikipedia)

More 'shrooms and critters tomorrow.

Pink lace petticoats

A very old-fashioned mushroom, with frilly white skirts rucked up to show off the pink lace beneath; this one always looks out of place, growing as it does, on wet, stained, old wood.

Common Split Gill mushroom, Schizophyllum commune

When the weather is dry, it folds those lace petticoats underneath to conserve moisture. In wet weather, (which we've been having plenty of) it fans out again.

The same mushroom, with another, smaller one.

Schizophyllum commune is easily recognized. Its tiny fruiting bodies lack stems, and they attach themselves like tiny bracket fungi on the dead wood of deciduous trees. Unlike a bracket fungus, however, Schizophyllum commune has what appear to be gills on its underside, rather than pores or a simple, flat surface. On close inspection the "gills" turn out to be merely folds in the undersurface--and they are very distinctively "split" or "doubled" (enlarge the illustrations). (Mushroom Expert.com)

This mushroom grows all around the world, year-round, so there are many photos on the internet. However, almost all of them show the underside, the split "gills". Even my trusty Guide shows only photos taken from underneath. A pity; those lacy skirts are too glorious to be passed by like that!

Water lovers

At the top of the beaches all along the Campbell River shore, a barricade of logs divides land from sea. It's the ocean's doing; humans have erected an inner rock barrier between logs and paths. In spots, they clear away the logs, but the water always brings them back. Following a trail down to the beach entails scrambling over a dozen or more piled logs.

At this time of year, with alternating bouts of rain, frost, rain, chilly sunshine, more rain, the logs are always wet and often slimy and treacherous underfoot.

Picking my way carefully back to land, Friday afternoon, I found a colony of wooly mushrooms on one of these wet logs.

Tiny split gill mushrooms

One of the larger mushrooms, about 3/4 inch across.

A fuzzy, lacy top, but tough; even tougher than the wood they grow on.

These are Split Gill mushrooms, Schizophyllum comune. The Latin name means "Common Split Leaf". They are named for the fruiting structure on the underside of the mushroom. Except that they are not gills, nor are they leaves, but simply folds in the surface to protect the spores.

Very fuzzy photo taken from underneath the log, where only the camera fit, plus one finger to press the shutter. But the split "gills" are visible.

These mushrooms grow on dead hardwoods. I've seen them on logs in the summer; shrivelled, hard, and dry, looking dead.

When the weather is dry, the mushrooms fold inward, protecting the fruiting underside. And the rays underneath close tightly. In this state, they can tolerate long dry spells, even several years without rain.

And then it rains. The mushroom expands, flattens out. All those rays split themselves open down the middle, sort of like a dry bean pod, opening to spit out the beans. (The split rays are visible in the photo above.) Inside each ray, spores are formed and released as long as the wet continues.

They can repeat the cycle several times, opening and closing, resting and fruiting, without harm. Even in the dead of winter, they are still capable of producing viable spores, as long as they have moisture.

... Schizophyllum commune. It is probably the most widespread fungus in existence, being found on every continent except Antarctica, where there is no wood to be used as a substrate. There is a single common worldwide species, although there are a few less common species of Schizophyllum. (From TomVolkFungi.net)

My mushroom books, and half the websites I found, say that this mushroom is not edible.

Inedible; too small and leathery to be of culinary value. (Mykoweb)

These bracket-like fungi are often tougher than the timber from which they sprout, and so they are of no culinary interest. (First Nature)

But Wikipedia explains that this is probably due to different tastes. It is "widely consumed" in Mexico, in India, and elsewhere. I never saw it in Mexico, but I did eat other "non-edible" fungi there.