WOW! Cool fungus-orchid news

In my inbox, I found an article from PNAS via Discover's blog.  I've currently having a bit of a nergasm, this is so cool.  I've recently started collecting orchids, which are about as strange as fungi (and intimately associated with fungi, by the way), so this really caught my eye.  A rare orchid's leaves look like they're infected with a fungus, both macroscopically and microscopically, attracting flat-footed flies to pollinate them.  The flies are attracted to sick and rotting vegetation feeding on the spores, so the orchid has evolved to look just like an infected plant, even when healthy.  The flies visit, pick up pollen, and move on to the next orchid, effectively transferring pollen.  The orchid's leaf hairs even look like spores of a fungus, and the scent produced by the flower is similar to that of the fungus, further developing the ruse.

Part of me thinks this may be an April Fool's Day joke, though that would be highly irregular for a journal such as PNAS.  Orchids are notorious for their ability to mimic other organism's for the purpose of achieving cross-pollination, here's a video of some bee-mimic orchids.

Old Fisheries Pond

I went out after a wet weekend to see if anything had come up. I did find a few things, like this lovely little Scutellinia scutellata, the eyelash fungus. This cute little asco is not in Bessette et al. or Weber and Smith, for some odd reason.  But it's here, for sure. 

Scutellinia scutellata, Pyronemataceae, Pezizales, Ascomycota

It seems as though Monday has been giant storm day over the past few weeks, with storms rolling in overnight and taking down trees.  All the moisture has had the cedar apple rust going gangbusters as well.

Telial horns out the wazoo! I did get a peak under a compound scope and saw the two-celled teliospores, which look like two cones facing each other.  I didn't see any basidia or basidiospores that I could discern, though.  I'll take another look later today.

Mobile Leprechaun Remix

Happy St. Patrick's Day, y'all!

Looky here!

Tomorrow is, of course, Saint Patrick's Day, and while I don't have any Irish blood that I know of, I do like to look twice at clover patches for items such as those seen in the picture above.  I know it's not related to fungi at all, unless I start blathering on about the various fungi you might find on clovers, and there are a lot. A search just for rusts on genus Trifolium yields about 1200 records in the SMML Fungus-Host Distribution Database. Anyway, perhaps it's because I spend quite a bit of time looking down at the ground for fungi that I also like to look at clovers.  Observe that there are at least 2 four-leaf clovers in this picture.  Where are they, you may ask?  Do you think I'd tell?

Busy busy busy

A nice little Pluteus cervinus on an old rotten log

It's been raining, so I've been out hunting mushrooms.  As I mentioned previously, I went out on the Tuskegee National Forest with some of my students, out on the Bartram Trail (or Bertram Trail, if you believe the sign, which you shouldn't).  That was a couple of weeks ago, now, and already I've been at it again.  Last week I gave a talk to my new friends in the East Alabama Orchid Society about mycorrhizal fungi and orchids (a very cool story I'll elaborate on later, I promise).  Earlier this week I gave a talk to my daughter's kindergarten class about mushrooms, and this morning I went out to the Alabama Nature Center in Millbrook, AL to talk to some of their nature educators about identifying mushrooms and other macrofungi.  They do have a beautiful site out there, so I'll be sure to head back, and I suggest you do too.  After me flapping my lips for close to two hours, we got to go looking for some mushrooms.  Even though it had only rained yesterday (and some last week) we saw some neat stuff out there: Cortinarius (pictured, species?  not sure I even want to go there), Hygrocybe chlorophana (I called it Hygrophorus, which it used to be, same family, still a waxy cap, nice yellow thing) Hypholoma fasciculare (sulfur tuft, formerly known as Naematoloma), and lots of polypores and what-not.  It looks like we're getting more rain, which is good news!  And to top it off, I just got a copy of Taylor Lockwood's Mushroom Identification Trilogy in the mail.   I'll let you know what I think of it by and by.  Good times!

Cortinarius sp., with fresh cortina!

10,000!

A modest milestone finally met
For mushrooms on the internet
Thanks to all y'all who visit
To read of a Kingdom, exquisite
Passing through, or for many a year
Y'all come back, now, y'hear?

George Washington Carver Museum

Bust of George Washington Carver outside the museum

 Yesterday my daughter's second grade class went on a field trip to the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site just a bit down the road from here.  Even though I had a field trip of my own to contend with in the afternoon (keep posted, details after the second trip today), I had to go for at least part of the trip, as George Washington Carver is a hero of mine.

Peephole into pictures of mushroom!

 I was pleasantly surprised to find a lovely display of mushrooms and other fungi displayed prominently near the entrance.  Fungi were one of Dr. Carver's many interests, and his Master's of Agriculture from what is now Iowa State University was in Plant Pathology.

Another peephole

Ascomycetes

 I especially appreciate that the macrofungi were separated into their proper divisions,

Basidiomycetes

 And I also liked this illustration of a powdery mildew cleistothecium.  As well as being a botanist, agricultural chemist, philanthropist (within his means), and inventor, he was also something of an artist. 

One of Dr. Carver's illustrations of a powdery mildew ascoma.

  I didn't remember the fungal display from my last visit, which was many years ago, but it just reinforced my fondness for this great man.