Cedar-apple rust

Extension agents probably hear it a lot this time of year: What the heck is that alien orange thingy in my cedar tree?!



Check out those gelatinous telial spore horns (noodly appendages).

It's Cedar-apple rust, and it's caused by the fungus Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae.

If yours doesn't look quite like this, it might be one of the similar (related) rusts: Cedar-hawthorne rust or Cedar-quince rust. Check the chart of rust differences.

Basically, the Cedar-hawthorne rust's noodly appendages are short and stubby (as opposed to the long and thin ones on the Cedar-apple rust gall shown here). And Cedar-quince rust is mainly just orange goo on bark and twigs. You can see pictures of the latter on my previous posts on the subject here and here. The photos at the first link also show how the rusts appear when they're not quite so wet.

I can't seem to stop writing about these rusts when they make themselves so obvious in the spring. The way they alternate hosts, and of course their appearance, is so unusual.

Fungi expert Tom Volk has written about Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae too, in a much more scientific fashion, here.

Fire in the woods

British Soldiers (Cladonia cristatella), my favorite lichen.



Two very small salamanders. Either Southern Red-backed (Plethodon serratus), Southern Zigzag (Plethodon ventralis), or Webster’s (Plethodon websteri).

According to Salamanders in Alabama, they're "easily confused".



These tiny... things... were growing on a limb rotting on the ground. I can't even tell if they are a type of mushroom, slime mold, lichen, or what. Possibly an immature version of Peniophora rufa...?

The whole line there was about the width of a blade of grass. I could definitely use a macro lens. And of course that portable DNA analyzer that they are being so slow to invent.



An easy one, finally: Truckus plasticus.

And there's always this:

The muscovy duck who thinks he's my boyfriend.



He follows me into the woods, if I'm moving slowly enough.

I'll be hunkered down, minding my own business, trying to take a photo of something low to the ground, when I hear a coarse hissing from behind.

That's my cue to stand up fast, unless I'm in the mood to be nibbled, stabbed, and pinched by a duck.

I'm not sure how he carries bread crumbs, but he's always there waiting when we get back home.

More fun with fungi

Fungi are one of the more frustrating things to try to identify. I thought bugs were bad, but at least BugGuide is pretty dang inclusive. No such comprehensive reference exists for mushrooms, so far as I know.



You'd think this sweet little cup-type would be easy to identify. I was thinking, well it looks like a bird's nest fungus, only without the "eggs". But I can't seem to find any reference to anything like that, not to one that isn't "densely hairy" anyway. Maybe its hairs are all repressed, what with the drought...?



Sometimes it helps to just google what something looks like. (The top search term that finds this blog has been "yellow fuzzy caterpillar" for over 2 years now.)

But trying to find "yellow sandwich fungus" didn't do me much good.



I do believe it's the same fungus as this one, which he calls Stacka hydnum (which you'd think would be the scientific name, but isn't). But other pictures of Climacodon septentrionalis (the real scientific name) look completely different to me.

Then there's this black stuff.



If you look at this site, you'd be pretty convinced that it's Diatrype stigma, common tarcrust.



But if you went by this image, or this one, you might not.



And is this even the same black stuff? It seemed thin and crusty, whereas the others were thicker and sort of... puffed.

I do think, after looking at several images for common tarcrust, that it's what I've been seeing when it seems like there are several old burned branches in an area with no other signs of fire.

MMMushrooms

I had a feeling that the rain last week would make a few fungi shout for joy. I think these are oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus).



But I'm not sure enough to try to eat them.



Even though there are so many.



And they look so tasty.

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Everything I know about mushrooms is from books. The only one I'd be confident enough to eat would be a morel. And I never seem to find more than one of those at a time, so I just leave them and hope they'll make more.

People in Europe gather wild mushrooms all the time, but I've never had anyone here (in the south) tell me that they do.

Cup Fungus

A couple of pictures of a cup fungus from earlier this spring.



Gaze into the inky depths...

You are feeling sleepy, very sleepy...



I believe this is The Devil's Urn, Urnula craterium. At least according to the most entertaining key you'll ever see.

So, The Devil's Urn... the Stephen King of fungi?

There are possibly more suitable candidates for that title:
Death Cap
The Sickener
Destroying Angel
Bleeding Heart Mycena
Poison Pie
Trumpet of Death
Dead Man's Fingers

I found this link about mushroom poisoning in general and the Death Cap mushroom in particular.

The page itself is interesting, but so are the google ads. The first one fits: Morel mushroom hunting. Sure. The next one though, is Hats and Caps for Men. Hmm. Then you have Death Indemnity Coverage. Kind of drives home the whole "world's most dangerous mushroom" idea.

Scenes from dry woods

No time.




We'll talk later.

Maybe by then the Mockingbird will have tired of taunting me, repeating midnight tales of Scarlet Tanagers.

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Turtle shell.
Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum). My husband calls these Germamiums, partly (I believe) because he knows I think it's cute.
Morel mushroom.

Orange goo

Me: Did you see this wierd orange fungus stuff all over the grass?! What is it?

Hubby: Isn't it from that cedar tree right over your head?

Me: D'oh!



I shouldn't be surprised -- I have a hard enough time recognizing people when I see them out of context.^* So I guess not recognizing the cedar-quince rust I wrote about last year when it was in the grass (instead of on a tree) is not so surprising.

This is near a bird feeder, so I'm not sure if the birds knocked it off, or if it just fell off.

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^* If I normally see Ms. XYZ only in a certain place, then I'm not guaranteed to recognize her if I see her somewhere else. For example, I might not recognize my librarian if I run into her at the grocery store. This has gotten worse since we started doing craft shows and see a LOT of people. It probably also has to do with age. (I just realized that this doesn't usually happen if I know the person's name. But since I'm so bad at remembering names that revelation is probably not going to help me much.)

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If it had been cedar-apple rust (see last year's post) I think I would have remembered those alien-invasion-looking things, even in the grass!

Eastern Gall Rust

I took this picture in April 2005 but only recently figured out what it was. When looking up something else I ran across a photo of Eastern Gall Rust (Cronartium quercuum). It's similar to the Cedar Apple Rust that I wrote about last year. They are both heteroecious, which means that they require two unrelated hosts to complete the life cycle.

I learned that $10 word from the Rust page on James Worrall's excellent Forest Pathology site, where you can also learn about cankers and wilts and so many other problems that you'll be amazed that trees can survive at all.

According to one site, the portion of the tree beyond the gall normally dies, which I suppose explains why I haven't noticed this gall since the spring I took this picture.

Black Fungi

I took a couple of exceedingly bad photos of a small black fungus growing in the grass.



It's possibly Craterellus fallax, or Black Trumpet, a type of Chanterelle.



A black jelly fungus:



Looks like the same type that's in many Chinese soups.

I'm not sure enough about either ID to try to eat them, though.

In the woods

Tiny white mushrooms or alien pod people invasion?

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I have to use the computer in short spurts these days. I must need new glasses, because the screen gives me headaches and eyestrain after more than just a few minutes. But that'll have to wait til January. (50 million things to do, plus the new year's deductible starts soon...)

Over the holidays I'm going think about updating my links and maybe rearranging them. I'd appreciate some input/ideas. Do people use them? Would it be better to just link within posts now and then? Should they be categorized, and if so can I handle 50 million blogroll accounts? (Or is there another way to do that?)

Also, Blogger Beta/New Blogger. I like the idea of categories but I'm still seeing problems. Your thoughts...?

Shh.

The trees have ears.

Stalking the Earth

I bought a birthday card once with a dinosaur on the cover. Inside, instead of "Happy Birthday," it read, "Congratulations on another year of stalking the Earth."

In birthday terms, I've probably been stalking for more years than I have years remaining to stalk. But it's amazing what can still surprise.

I saw a velvet ant this week. I don't think they're particularly rare, but this makes only the third time I've encountered one.



She was in a hurry and wouldn't pose at all. When I looked up the latin name, Dasymutilla occidentalis, I read that they make an odd sqeaking/squealing noise when captured. So now I'll have to try that next time I see one. They're also called cow-killers because of an extremely painful sting, though I haven't found anyone who has first-hand knowledge of it.

During the weekly cat walk, George investigated a humongous fungus. A champion champignon!



I don't remember ever seeing a mushroom this large. Some wild critter had left small scratches on the surface - it must have been curious too.

Hubby found a spider hiding between some rocks in the creek.



Turns out there are fishing spiders! Dolomedes tenebrosus or scriptus. I think this is the latter. The leg span can reach 3 inches (7.6 cm). I like spiders reasonably well, but I think I'd have to put this one out if he came in the house... I've seen enough spy movies to know that a spider that big and hairy would definitely want to crawl all over my face in the middle of the night.

What new thing did you discover this week?

(Non) hay bale gardening

Hubby wanted to try hay-bale gardening after reading a newspaper article about a man who'd had great luck with it. But this is the kind of luck we had.



I don't even think that's an edible type.

A little rusty

We couldn't work in the garden at all over the weekend, because it rained so much Friday night and Saturday morning.


It rained hard - the creek is always muddy when that happens.

I'm not sure exactly how much it rained... our old rain gauge cracked, and Jasmine apparently thinks the new one is a chew toy. Some areas got 2 - 4 inches.

After it stopped pouring on Saturday we went for a walk to see if we could see any migrant birds. But I got a little distracted.



I had a feeling that it was cedar-apple rust, which I'd read about but never noticed.



The bizarro-alien-invader-looking things were only on cedars.



They were easy to spot since they were so bright orange.

These roundish ones were the oddest looking, but there were also little sleeves of orange gelatinous goo on twigs, and bunches of it in clusters like this:



Here's what that one looked like the next day after drying out:



Big difference!



The roundish ones looked slightly less creepy when dry.

I didn't get a shot of the sleeve-like parts when wet, but here is a dry one.



If I've read this chart of rust differences correctly, the roundish ones are cedar-apple rust, and the others are cedar-quince rust.

It's an interesting fungus - it has to go back and forth between hosts (cedars and apples) to survive. Which is why the old timey remedy, if you're trying to grow apples, is to just cut down all the cedars! Hmm.

The other remedy is spraying fungicides. But since we're not trying to grow apples, I don't think it's worth it. I had a sad thought for all the crabapples I just planted, but since all the animals roam in those areas I'd rather not be spraying anything.

Meanwhile

The hepaticas have already finished flowering.


Bluebells are waning.


A few anemone groups are still hanging on.


Little umbrellas are opening all over the place.


Another umbrella.


Construction projects have begun.


There's one in every crowd.


I can't believe I missed yet another snake. This time I had the camera, but the snake was faster.

Unidentified Fungi

I give up.

Online mushroom identification is geared towards two groups:
a) those who want to find wild mushrooms to eat, and
b) those who want to find wild mushrooms to get high.

Since I want to do neither, I spent an extremely frustrating hour trying to identify just the first fungus above.

The other day when I had the Calostoma species it was a lot easier. I remembered seeing something similar in my one slim mushroom field guide and was able to Google that and find its relatives.

So, online mushroom identification can be simple... if you already know what you have.

Otherwise, like me, you need to buy a book.

(There is the beautiful Rogers Mushrooms online, but I believe it's mainly geared towards Europe at present.)

Strange yellow fungi

Hubby and I were out walking. Right in the middle of being pouty and complaining, I spotted these strange yellow fungi

growing out of the side of a mossy little bluff on the old logging road.


Close-up of the lower one. If it were any larger I think I'd be worried about zombies hatching out and trying to eat my brains.


Close-up of the other one.*


I found another group further down the road. This one's stem was covered in leaves.


I removed them so I could see it in all its, um, glory.

I almost feel the need to say that these photos may not be suitable for young children!

I believe these are either Ravenel's Stalked Puffball (Calostoma ravenelii) or Yellow Stalked Puffball (Calostoma lutescens). I found a couple of keys but neither seems to match exactly.


* Interesting tiny fern (or bryophyte?) on the lower right too. I didn't notice it until I looked at the photos. I couldn't identify it with a quick web search - maybe someone else will know.

Fungi forms

Fungus: any of a major group of saprophytic and parasitic spore-producing organisms usually classified as plants that lack chlorophyll (molds, rusts, mildews, smuts, mushrooms, and yeasts).*

Lichen: any of numerous complex thallophytic plants made up of an alga and a fungus growing in symbiotic association on a solid surface.

*Edited to add:
Dave from Via Negativa writes:
"... I would quarrel with "usually classified as plants" - I think most taxonomists now assign molds and fungi to their own kingdom. Lichens can be partnerships either with green algae (Plant Kingdom) or blue-green algae (Monera)."

Thanks Dave! I borrowed that from ol' Webster, who is clearly as behind on taxonomic updates as I am.

Dave also identifies the first shelf fungus below as Turkey Tail.
*End of edit


A Cup fungus


Witch's butter (Tremella mesenterica, a jelly fungus)

Thus ends my knowledge of fungus names. I love all the different shapes though.

Shroom

At the bottom of the crumbling, rotted tree that woodpeckers and moss had assaulted and transformed into a pyramid of decaying wood chips, grew this tiny, tiny mushroom.

Growths

Resurrection fern (Polypodium polypodioides).
The latin name really seems to stress the fact that the plant has "many feet". It's an air plant that can play dead - click the link for more info.


Fungi. I haven't delved into trying to figure out the names of fungi yet - I think this is a type of shelf fungus. (If you know the name please leave a comment.)