You can now find my blog here.

Leocarpus fragilis - a slime mold…

Hello, dearest! Forgive my tardiness. The New Year came and went, and I was stuck in Chinatown examining dried stinkhorns, pre-Fukushima Icelandic Kelp, and dodging firecrackers. January? Oh. I must have missed the dawning of that New Year as well.

(Door closes. Suitcases are placed at the door. Tie is loosened, buttons undone. Kisses are exchanged, followed by a warm but tentative embrace. There is a short but intense moment of eye contact. It is implied that all will be explained in due time.)

Yes indeed, there’s a tremendous amount we must catch up on. Just a tremendous amount. Where to begin… Pour me some scotch, will you? Neat, please. Join me, will you?

(glasses clink, small sips)

Ahhh… yes.. That settles me in. I’m sure you’ve noticed that mushroom season is nearly over, my dear. The El Niño was strong, but the rains came late and although heavy at times, they amount to a relief at best. Fungi did fruit in Santa Cruz, and some fruited well.

^ Phaeocollybia were seen in Santa Cruz (there are very few documented records of this genus here).

But salvation seems to elude us. Temperatures across this great Golden State have been 10-20 F above average for February. God help us. 

(large sips)

Alright, alright. Here’s the long and short of it: Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast is now entirely out of our hands. Noah Siegel and I have turned in the so-called “second pages”, which means that the book goes to print soon. Yes, thank you, cheers! Soon this Six-Year task will be behind us. Many peaks on the horizon beckon.

(glasses clink, “sips” involving serious liquid volume)

^ Shaking off the pall cast by 5 years of book writing about one of the least-well-known eukaryotic groups in the United States…

What else? The Redwood Coast Naturalists mushroom identification courses are done for the season; having fit two beginner’s sessions as well as one intermediate session under my belt. I had an outstanding experience. Who knew there were so many lovely people in this world? See below.

Our Santa Cruz Mycoflora Project made the NPR airwaves. Yes, you can hear the article still. The Fungus Federation renewed their material support for our endeavors. The Norris Center at UC Santa Cruz provides a roof, shelves, and good company. A major grant application is underway. Life is good. The future is bright.

^ Santa Cruz Mycoflora data-gatherers

But there is much to catch you up on that has more to do with the world at large; let us not be provincial.

I have tales to tell you:

• Unknown Objects of Extraterrestrial Origin.
  
• I shall be attending a meeting regarding the Fate of Threatened and Endangered Fungi.
• Small Worlds
• Fungal Extremity and Exceptionality

But first… I must tell you more about where I have been. It was promised to you and now you must have it. The eastern hemisphere. The southern (!) hemisphere. Mainland Malaysia. Borneo. Sulawesi. Bali. Java. In that order, I shall begin next week to cover my times and travels. These places… the creatures… the people… they all left a strong impression on my mind and my heart. To be sure, love, I am still coming to terms. 

Cheers to that.
(glasses clink, sips taken, fire crackles to life)

Gaze upon this Tokay Gecko (Gekko gecko). They say their names unnervingly while the world is asleep.

Can you blame me for being unable to resist the allure of this moth?

*Door closes*. I’m home. I know my hair is tousled, my backpack is splitting at the seams, I have lipstick and Lepidopteran-scales on my shirt collar. But the wait is over. I’ve been unjustifiably silent. My bravado about long silences in the last post was just that - bravado. I missed you. You missed me. Tears were shed. Beds went cold.

Allow me to attempt a rekindling of the flame. What better way than a baring of the soul? A confession? Here goes: …I’m seeing other organisms.

I know, I know! You came here for fungi. But as I intimated long ago, there’s a whole world of creatures out there, and I Iove (almost) all of them. As I get older, my perspective be steady broadenin’. Birds, nudibranchs, marine mammals, fish… I can no longer pretend. I’m Biodiversiphilic.

If you hold my hand and keep in mind whatever it was you liked about me as the blogger you first met, I think we can get through this.

Here’s what I’ve been up to recently:

I went to Borneo. I found this ^ thing. I don’t know what it is (edit: Danny Newman and Jimmie Veitch suggested Gloiocephala; I think they are correct!). If you promise that you’ll stick with me while we work this out I will show you a bunch more pictures of stuff from Borneo. I will even tell you some naturalist pro-tips about what to do while you’re there. Pinky-swear.

This is an almost-unbelievably scenic coral-reef tableau. I know this might be hard for you to hear, but I spent a fair amount of time underwater this summer. There was just so much to see. It’s beautiful down there. I’ll tell you all about it. Just give me some time. Do you know about Kraits? 

This is a Humpback Whale. It is leaving the ocean and being in the air. Given the number of tons that a Humpy weighs, this is an impressive feat. To be perfectly honest, I’ve been spending a lot of time both under the salt water and on top of it. The Ocean is my mistress, and I am her adoring devotee.

I’m a birder; you probably know this much. It hasn’t rained on the Central Coast of California in months, so I feel pretty comfortable saying that I wasn’t getting my needs met. I look at a lot of birds to fill that space. The one pictured above is a Geothlypis, and it makes a pretty convincing case for being a hybrid Common Yellowthroat x McGillivray’s Warbler hybrid. Is it actually? We will probably never know.

Please stay tuned. I’m branching out. I’m learning to love more.
And I’m teaching classes:
http://www.redwoodcoasttours.com/events/

I don’t expect my scribblings here were missed much, and an apology for my long hiatus and silence seems asinine anyway. Moving on.

Since Noah and I submitted our first draft of Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast to our publishers (!!!), I’ve kind of been on physical/mental vacation. My first sally was to Louisiana, where I saw many, many birds I’d never seen before, and even encountered a handful of mushrooms that I also had yet to experience in vivo. 

Most notably, I encountered the glorious little Anthracophyllum lateritium, which encounter I was wholly unprepared for. The red gills that slowly turn charcoal-colored as they age and mustard-yellow caps are really unlike anything else in the United States.

Likewise, Louisiana is a Land of Lizards, and I was pleased to make the acquaintance of this hormonally-inflamed Green Anole (albeit a brownish one).

After a brief and rather bored return to my normal life in Santa Cruz, one of my esteemed Bigoteros rescued me (in the form of an escapist-style fugue) to the Mountains of Arizona.

We birded a lot. I encountered some very rare birds (from a UnitedStatesian perspective, anyway), as well as others not rare but nevertheless heretofore-unseen-by-me. Mushrooms were very scarce, since the monsoon rains that awaken these forests with mycological magic are still months away. However, we did have one encounter that tickled my ornitho-amygdala and fungal-cortex simultaneously:

While birding at Madera Canyon, we found this Elegant Trogon calling near its nest. 

Like all trogons, this species nests in tree cavities (previously excavated by woodpeckers). I suspect that wood-decaying polypores play a role in ‘ripening’ (softening) the dead wood of snags that woodpeckers and other cavity-nesting birds depend on - evidence of such a relationship is perhaps present in the picture below, with a Phellinus fruiting abundantly above the Elegant Trogon’s nest hole. 

Or perhaps it’s the reverse? Maybe the fungi infect the wound on the tree after the woodpecker has penetrated the protective outer bark? Either way, I bet that the interactions between birds and fungi in these temperate forests is not as peripheral as it might seem.

     I have always wondered how many mushroom species it would be possible to see in one day in Santa Cruz County. Since this fall has been so exceptionally fruitful for mushrooms, I decided to give it a go… How else to find out? 

     I chose this time of the year because the fall mushroom assemblage is rapidly transitioning into the winter assemblage, briefly bumping up easily-seen diversity during the period of overlap.  Since I didn’t have a full day to commit start to finish (Christmas parties, work, etc.), I had to spread out my efforts over four days. 5 hours were spent on the 18th, 2 hours cumulatively on the 19th and 20th, and 2 hours on the 21st (drive times included, without overlapping drive times removed). Totaled up, this roughly equals the amount of available daylight (plus maybe a little headlight hunting) that is usually available during this period of fall/winter overlap. I’m quite sure that all the mushrooms I encountered could have been found on either the 18th or the 21st. I ended up with 270 species (not all identified to species, but recognizable RTUs).

      I think this is clear evidence that 300 species could be seen by one person in a single day during a good year in Santa Cruz County. I think it’s even feasible to get well over this number, keeping in mind:

 1. Start with a prioritized list of expected species. I missed many common species.

2. Scout the week ahead of time to locate rarer taxa - I did no scouting.

3. Plan an efficient driving route. I made mine up as I went, and some driving time is double-counted in my 9 hours.

4. Learn to distinguish Mycena and other tough taxa by sight (at least with provisional names) - I put no real effort into distinguishing gray Mycenas and other difficult groups (Galerina, Leptonia), although I did so with Cortinarius.

5. Spend most of your time at a few high-productivity areas that are relatively close to one another but very different from one habitat-wise (minimizing drive time while maximizing species turnover between sites). Driving time was the single biggest detracting factor.

6. Go alone, and don’t photograph species for which a photo is not helpful in later distinction. I spent a lot of time photographing mushrooms and talking to my companions, which was very pleasant but didn’t serve this particular bizarre goal.

The areas I visited were: Ponderosa Lodge, Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park (near Graham Hill Road), Fall Creek Unit (near Empire Grade), UCSC (oaks northwest of the Arboretum), Big Basin State Park (visitor center area to Pine Mountain Trail and part of Skyline to the Sea), Pogonip, the San Lorenzo River corridor (including the Cemetery near Ocean Street Extension), and a few neighborhood spots including my yard.

 Below is the list of mushrooms I encountered:

Agaricus albolutescens (prime fruiting at Henry Cowell)

** Agaricus fuscofibrillosus (first time I have seen it in the county, urban cypress)

Agaricus hondensis

Agaricus micromegathus

Agaricus praeclaresquamosus (new name pending)

Agaricus subrutilescens

Agaricus xanthodermus

Agrocybe pediades

Agrocybe praecox (only saw it in my front yard!)

Alboleptonia sericella

Amanita augusta

Amanita baccata (sandhills around Henry Cowell Observation Deck)

Amanita constricta

Amanita gemmata

Amanita muscaria

Amanita novinupta 

Amanita pantherina group

Amanita phalloides

Amanita silvicola

Annulohypoxylon thouarsianum

Antrodia madronae

Antrodia sp. (a small, large-pored species on SCZ Mtn. manzanita)

Armillaria mellea

Armillaria solidipes

Astraeus hygrometricus

Atheniella adonis

Auriscalpium vulgare

Bjerkandera adusta (one large fruiting in Pogonip near the Koi Pond)

Bolbitius titubans

Calocera cornea

Cantharellus californicus

Caulorhiza umbonata

Chalciporus piperatoides

Cheimonophyllum candidissimus

Chlorophyllum brunneum (many under Eucalyptus along San Lorenzo River)

Chroogomphus ochraceus

Claudopus sp. (on sand at Ponderosa Lodge)

Clavaria “blunt tips”

Clavaria falcata

** Clavaria flavipes - very rare, perhaps 4th North American collection? Big Basin.

Clavaria vermicularis

Clavariadelphus occidentalis (small fruiting under Live Oak, Pogonip)

** Clavariadelphus cf. truncatus (rare for this area, Fall Creek)

Clavulinopsis laeticolor

Clitocybe sp.

Clitocybe “shallow gills”

Clitocybe californiensis

Clitocybe fragrans

Clitocybe nebularis

Clitocybe nuda

Clitocybe odora

Clitocybe trulliformis

Clitocybula sp.

Clitopilus nitellinus

Coniophora olivacea

Coprinellus flocculosus

Coprinellus Section Micacei

Coprinopsis (fuzzy white on horse dung)

Coprinus comatus (one fruiting near Koi Pond, Pogonip)

Cortinarius (Section Anomali)

Cortinarius (subgenus Dermocybe)

Cortinarius (subgenus Myxacium)

Cortinarius (subgenus Telamonia) tawny

Cortinarius (subgenus Telamonia) 1

Cortinarius aff. obtusus

Cortinarius aff. laniger

Cortinarius cisqhale

Cortinarius clandestinus

Cortinarius glaucopus

Cortinarius infractus

Cortinarius lilacinocolossus

Cortinarius ohlone

Cortinarius percomis

Cortinarius ponderosus

Cortinarius section Anomali

Cortinarius subgenus Myxacium (bluish-lilac)

Cortinarius subgenus Phlegmacium (dull)

Cortinarius subgenus Phlegmacium (colorful)

Cortinarius subgenus Telamonia purple cap

Cortinarius subgenus Telamonia silvery

Cortinarius trivialis

Cortinarius viridirubescens

Cortinarius xanthodryophilus

Craterellus cornucopioides

Crepidotus mollis

Cuphophyllus fornicatus

Cuphophyllus graveolens

Cuphophyllus lawrencei

Dacrymyces palmatus

Dacrymyces stillatus

Dendrothele candida

Entoloma 1

Entoloma 2

Entoloma 3

Entoloma 4

Entoloma bloxami

Entoloma “conoradicatum”

Entoloma ferruginans

Entoloma subgenus Leptonia 1

Entoloma subgenus Leptonia 2

Entoloma subgenus Nolanea

Entoloma subsaundersi

Fomitopsis cajanderi

** Fomitopsis officinalis (large fruiting on Douglas-fir, Felton-Empire)

Fomitopsis pinicola

Galerina sp.

Galerina marginata

Ganoderma applanatum

Geastrum saccatum

Gliophorus minutulus

Gliophorus psittacinus

Gloeoporus dichrous

Gomphidius oregonensis

Gymnopilus sapineus

Gymnopilus (small bright conifer wood)

Gymnopus (large, madrone bark)

Gymnopus subpruinosus

Gymnopus villosipes

Hebeloma crustuliniforme

Helotiales (yellow disco swarm)

Helvella dryophila

Hemimycena 1

Hemimycena 2

Heterotextus alpinus

Hohenbuehelia grisea

Hydnum (rufescens type?)

Hygrocybe acutoconica

Hygrocybe aurantiosplendens

Hygrocybe coccinea

Hygrocybe singeri

Hygrophorus eburneus

Hygrophorus roseibrunneus

Hypholoma fasciculare

Hypocrea (yellow, on polypore)

Hypomyces microspermus group

Inocybe 1

Inocybe 2

Inocybe geophylla

Inocybe lilacina

Inocybe sororia

Jahnoporus hirtus

Laccaria amethysteo-occidentalis

Laccaria fraterna

Laccaria proxima

Lactarius “montanus”

Lactarius alnicola

Lactarius californiensis

Lactarius deliciosus

Lactarius megacarpus

Lactarius pallidiolivaceus

Lactarius rubidus

Lactarius rubrilacteus

Lactarius rufulus

Lactarius substriatus

Lactarius subvillosus

Lactarius xanthogalactus

Laetiporus gilbertsonii

Lenzites betulina

Leotia lubrica (one fruitbody, Big Basin)

Lepiota 1

Lepiota atrodisca

Lepiota castanea

Lepiota castaneidisca

Lepiota magnispora

Lepiota spheniscispora (late-ish, Pogonip)

Leptonia decolorans

Leptonia formosa

Leptoporus sp.

Leratiomyces ceres

Leratiomyces percevallii

Leucopaxillus albissimus

Leucopaxillus gentianeus

Lichenomphalia umbellifera

Lycoperdon molle (oak, UCSC)

Lycoperdon perlatum

Lycoperdon umbrinum

Lyophyllum decastes

Lyophyllum semitale group (fairly abundant, Big Basin)

Marasmius calhouniae

Marasmius plicatulus

Marasmius quercophilus

Micromphale arbuticola

Mucronella flava

Mucronella fusiformis

Mucronella small white clustered

Mycena 1

Mycena acicula

Mycena aurantiomarginata

Mycena californiensis

Mycena epipterygia (uncommon here, one fruitbody, Big Basin)

Mycena galericulata

Mycena maculata

Mycena oregonensis

Mycena pura

Mycena purpureofusca

Nidula candida

Omphalotus olivascens

Onnia (triquetra?, one fruitbody, pine, Henry Cowell)

Paralepista flaccida

Paxillus “oak undescribed”

Peziza sp.

Phaeoclavulina myceliosa

Phaeolus schweinitzii

** Phallus hadriani (thanks to Linda Rosewood! San Lorenzo corridor)

Phanerochaete sanguinea

Phellinus (oak)

Phellinus arctostaphyli

Phlebia radiata

Phlebia tremellosa

Phloeomana speirea

Pisolithus sp.

Pleurotus ostreatus

Pluteus cervinus group

Porodaedalea pini

** Postia caesia (uncommon here, Empire Grade, on Douglas fir)

Psathyrella candolleana

Psathyrella piluliformis

Psathyrella uliginicola

Psatyhyrella sp.

Pseudobaeospora deckeri (Big Basin)

Pseudobaeospora stevensii (Big Basin)

Pseudohydnum gelatinosum (abundant, Big Basin)

“Purple Fuzz”

Ramaria sp.

** Ramaria apiculata - uncommon here (Big Basin)

Ramaria formosa

Ramaria peach yellow

Ramaria “red”- (uncommon here, Fall Creek)

** Ramaria violaceibrunnea (uncommon here, Fall Creek & Big Basin)

** Rhodocollybia oregonensis- (rare here, Big Basin, first county record?)

Rhodocybe “brown”

Rhodocybe caelata

Rhodocybe nuciolens (two fruitbodies, redwoods at Pogonip)

Rhodophana nitellina

Roridomyces roridus (one fruitbody, Big Basin)

Russula 1

Russula 2

Russula brevipes

Russula cerolens

Russula cremoricolor

Russula cyanoxantha

Russula densifolia

Russula (greenish-brown-capped oak-associated cyanoxantha-type)

Russula murillii

Russula xerampelina

Schizophyllum commune

Simocybe centunculus

Sowerbyella rhenana (one fruiting, Ponderosa Lodge)

Stereum hirsutum

Stictis radiata

Suillellus amygdalinus (a few lateish fruitbodies at Pogonip)

Suillus caerulescens

Suillus fuscotomentosus

Suillus lakei

Trametes versicolor

Tremella aurantia

Tremellodendropsis tuberosa

Trichaptum abietinum

Trichoglossum hirsutum

** Tricholoma aurantia- (quite rare here, Fall Creek)

Tricholoma dryophilum

Tricholoma griseoviolaceum

Tricholoma pessundatum (a few fruitbodies with planted pine, Ocean Street cemetery)

Tricholoma saponaceum (both yellow form with pine and gray-white form with tanoak)

Tricholoma terreum

Tyromyces chioneus

Volvopluteus gloiocephalus

Xerocomellus truncatus

Xerocomellus zelleri

Xerocomus subtomentosus

Xylaria hypoxylon

The rains have returned in force to the California coast.
The people dance in the streets and in the forest, clothed and nude, ululating wildly with Joy. Some people have amplexus on the mind and are migrating in droves to their breeding pools… oh wait, those are newts.

Rot-Spirits populate the woods in tremendous quantities; their faces range from the familiar and friendly to the ghoulish and bizarre. Below are some portraits.

Bolbitius titubans - Patron Saint of Mucous and Being Small

A Slime Mold/Patron Saint of Keeping Luke Warm on Hoth. I imagine this image will make some of you feel bad feelings.