Protists

Liam is suddenly very interested in protists, although this is something I am not even sure what it is. I told him I would post this link, although I don't know what this thing is. More on protists when I figure out what they are.

Point Reyes Mini-Fungus Fair

Today the Bay Area Mycological Society hosted a Mini-Fungus Fair at Point Reyes National Park, so we drove up early, and did a little hike near the visitor center. The Woodpecker Trail is a nice little variable trail that starts in a little clutch of trees that have all been pecked with thousands of holes. Apparently the woodpeckers aren't hunting for bugs, they store acorns in the little holes they make. Who knew? The trail went through a meadow and then into a denser forest, where we found plenty of mushrooms. In particular, we found a gorgeous scarlet cup and several huge conks. 

The Fungus Fair (don't know why they called it Mini) was several tables of mushrooms that the BAMS member had collected yesterday. This was huge for us because we got to see some mushrooms we haven't been able to find, like the Panther (amanita pantherina) and the Gemmed Amanita (amanita gemmata). On top of that, we confirmed that a harmless seeming little brown mushroom we found yesterday is actually a Deadly Galerina. We brought it home and did a really cool spore print with it, so we weren't too psyched to learn that its at least as deadly as the Death Cap.

This first one is the Panther mushroom, followed by the beautiful Fly Agaric they had collected. Finally, some Turkey Tail we saw in the woods.

Skyline with Kate

We are way behind on my mushroom hike blogging. WAY behind. Last weekend (I think!) our cousin Kate visited, and brought her very own mushroom guide. You seriously cannot ask for a better guest than that. We saw many mushrooms, and Andrea already blogged about the ladybugs. We also saw these. The first one is a brown cup. The next picture shows the bird's nest mushrooms. Those tiny little mushrooms have even tinier little disks in them, so they look like little bird's nests. The last one is a purple fungus we saw growing on the end of a log. Not only was Kate a great mushroom hunter (it runs in the family) but our friends Conor, Finn, Lisa and Pat were awesome too.