Eugene: Day-5

Spending time in the Pacific Northwest at this time of year always means seeing lichens and mosses at their peak when everything is quite damp. It is also mushroom season. So our walks are always dominated by seeing lots of these species. What’s even better is that our grandson, Oscar really likes fungi. Last year at the age of seven he wanted a fungi book for adults not one for kids. So for Christmas we got his a book on the fungi of the Pacific Northwest. Now that he’s eight he’s showing us his mushroom spore prints, drawings and helping us identify these interesting critters. Hopefully I can also get him interested in lichens which are symbiotic fungi and algae.

Virtually every tree branch has a nice variety of lichens. There are three species on this branch that is outside the front door.

These are wand lichens and are in the genus Cladonia and are surrounded by three species of mosses on these nearby rocks in the driveway.

Also on a nearby branch here is an Usnea lichen on of the “old-man’s beards.” It dominates whenever I find members of this genus as here where it is starting to envelop the luchen to the right.

Also on the driveway rocks to the right of the above two is a lichen that I do not know. My major lichen reference book is back home in Michigan.

The central lichen here, another that do not know is right of a bunch of other lichens and mosses.

On our walk yesterday we found a leafless deciduous tree that was covered with this amazingly lon Usnea species. It is perhaps “Methusaleh’s beard lichen.”

And finally Woolly bird’s nest fungi growing among wood chips just up hill along the street from Alexis’.

More tomorrow.