Life on the Outer Coast

Friday & Saturday

Worked with Marty Johnson's class sorting the plants and soil for staining, spore counts and PCR work. Gold thread really is a good name for Coptis. Trichophorum has roots that look the most like what one expects roots to look like. They are long, white, somewhat branched with root hairs. Carex livida is somewhat similar, but Carex pluriflora roots are heavy duty rhizomatous things. Didn't get a look at the other roots, the samplers had only collected three of each plant and were done rather quickly, so didn't need my help.

Ran into Jeff Farvour at the Backdoor and he took me out to show me a mushroom he wanted identified. It was out Sawmill Crk Rd, a driveway just past the round house then up behind Barkhau's wood shop. Definitely not a place I'd casually wander. The forest looked like relatively new growth, not sure who cut the area or when, but it looked like a high-graded area, not a clear cut. I thought he was taking me to a site with Black or Blue chanterelles, not so, but it turned out to be something just as unusual. The mushrooms were truely impressive. There were 5 clusters of mushrooms. Each cluster was about 8" to 1.5ft in diameter and about 8 to 12 inches high. Gomphus kauffmanii (or Turbinellus kauffmanii) has a tan to brown cap with large scales. The ridges are much shallower than in the Chanterelles. The overall shape of one of the fungi is somewhat like a horn of plenty, although not all of them had such a pronounced curve in the stem. I've seen photos of this fungus from Medveje Hatchery area, but hadn't seen one myself. Gomphus is reportedly mycorrhizal.

Once again Mushroomexpert.com has a good discussion of this genus. The linked dissertation has ample taxonomic information. T. kauffmanii is on page 57.
Giachini, A. J. (2004). Systematics, phylogeny, and ecology of Gomphus sensu lato. Doctoral dissertation, Oregon State University
http://tede.ibict.br/tde_arquivos/1/TDE-2005-03-28T07:32:29Z-112/Publico/2_AdmirJGiachini_cap3_cap4.pdf

Spent the afternoon walking up to the first bridge on the Indian River trail with the elderhostel group. Well, 5 of them went with me to the bridge, the rest turned back not too much before it. Mary had stepped in a way that tweaked her bum knee, so reluctantly she turned back and the rest with her. I enjoyed spending more time with her. It will be interesting to hear how she puts her dispersal stories together in a presentation. Sent the folks back with golden chanterelles to try. Not sure that they realize how rare a handout that is. They are so abundant this year that I'm not too worried about hoarding them.
Brought back a Russula to torture myself with, actually started out with two species, but the lavender capped ones seem to be rather fragile and it didn't survive.
The surviving species keys to Russula emetica (it has in other years too). It has a fully red cap that is peelable most of the way across. The flesh under the pellicle is pink and smells like fruit. The spore print is white as is the stem. There isn't any bruising reaction in the flesh. This description matches R. emetica quite well, except it seems that this species is only supposed to occur in sphagnum bogs. Not exactly where I found it. So I'll leave this as R. emetica with the understanding that it is probably something else...

The last mystery that I dealt with tonight was the thick polypore that I collected last Saturday at Starrigavan. This one finally keyed out to Boletopsis subsquamosa group. I'm glad that Arora uses group. The cap is dark brownish-grey, wavy margined and about 4 inches in diameter. The pore layer started out white, but bruised brown. This polypore has a rather thick fleshy stalk which is the same color as the cap. The warty spores are what puts this comfortably in this genus. Apparently it is edible, but it doesn't look that appealing to me. Haven't found much yet about its ecology, but it seems to be ectomycorrhizal.

Spent most of the day catching up with chores, but did walk to dance Saturday morning despite the wild weather. One yellow warbler, one flicker near the park. Didn't quite have time to look at the mouth on the way to class and the rain was a bit intense after class.
Last nights storm brought in the first big rafts of loose macrocytis of the season, no petrels yet.