fungi

Caterpillar Club Fungi: More Than Meets the Eye

October 21, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

“Look!” I exclaimed, bending to examine a pair of half-inch-tall, bright orange, club-shaped mushrooms. Kneeling in the leaf litter, with my two-year-old son watching in puzzlement, I carefully scraped away at the base of the colorful clubs. Just beneath the soil was a glossy brown moth pupa: the origin of the mushrooms’ stalks.

This is the orange caterpillar club (Cordyceps militaris), an insect-eating fungus that is easy to find – if you know what to look for. [Read more…] about Caterpillar Club Fungi: More Than Meets the Eye

Bioluminescent Mushrooms: Why Some Mushrooms Glow in the Dark

September 24, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

I recently found myself sitting in the crawl space of my house holding a bioluminescent mushroom. I’d been on a quest to find one of these light-producing mushrooms and, on my birthday, had collected a jack o’lantern (Omphalotus illudens), so named for its bright orange color and nighttime glow.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, no present was more exciting than watching that green glow appear along the mushroom’s gills. [Read more…] about Bioluminescent Mushrooms: Why Some Mushrooms Glow in the Dark

Hair Ice and Frost Flowers

February 4, 2023 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

If you are out walking on a winter morning, you might be lucky enough to see some of nature’s most beautiful and ephemeral sights: hair ice and frost flowers, both snow-white and delicate against the dull forest floor. [Read more…] about Hair Ice and Frost Flowers

Deadwood: The Importance of Standing Dead Trees

January 28, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Some of the most important trees in your woodlot are the ones that are no longer alive. Large, standing dead or dying trees — called snags — are an important component of healthy forests and a critical habitat feature for wildlife.

They provide places for many birds and mammals to forage, den, nest, perch, and roost. Snags are particularly important for cavity nesting birds like woodpeckers, nuthatches, and chickadees; for bats that roost within cavities, crevices, and flaky bark; and for countless species that rely on the abundant insects, fungi, and lichens as a food source. [Read more…] about Deadwood: The Importance of Standing Dead Trees

Santa’s High Reindeer & Alice in Wonderland

December 3, 2022 by Paul Hetzler 1 Comment

If not for a fungus, Santa’s flying sleigh would be grounded. If that were the case, the only toys he could distribute would be to the elves who made them in the first place, which kind of spoils the whole surprise element.

The truth is that Mister Claus relies on Amanita muscaria, a mushroom which grows among pine and birch, to zip around the world on Christmas Eve. [Read more…] about Santa’s High Reindeer & Alice in Wonderland

Ash Tree Bolete: A Tangled Story of Ash, Aphid & Fungus

October 22, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then surely the friend of my enemy is my enemy. This inverted cliche is one way to characterize the tangled relationship between ash trees and the ash-tree bolete.

The ash-tree bolete (Boletinellus merulioides) is a fan-shaped brown mushroom with an off-center stem. It grows in association with ash trees throughout eastern North America; however, that association is an odd one. [Read more…] about Ash Tree Bolete: A Tangled Story of Ash, Aphid & Fungus

The Secret Language of Mushrooms

August 26, 2022 by Paul Hetzler Leave a Comment

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland was chock-a-block full of whimsical characters such as a hookah-smoking caterpillar and a bloodthirsty Queen of Hearts playing-card. Although animals and some objects in the story are able to speak, somehow the idea of a talking mushroom was too far-out even for Carroll’s rich imagination.

The book depicts a colorful hallucinogenic Amanita muscaria mushroom on which Alice dines (without so much as a parental warning) to become large or small. But while the Cheshire cat is chatty, the mushroom remains mum. [Read more…] about The Secret Language of Mushrooms

Winter Mushrooms

January 28, 2022 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

Winter is far a far cry from being prime mushroom hunting season. Most fungi stop producing mushrooms, or fruiting bodies, in early autumn, and their hyphae (filamentous structures that are the main part of the fungal body) are out of sight, inside wood or in the ground. However, you can still find some specimens in winter. Spotting them is simply a matter of knowing where to look. [Read more…] about Winter Mushrooms

Moose, Winter Ticks and Fungi

January 15, 2022 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Legend says a stake through the heart will kill a vampire. But it’s a bit more complicated if you’re plagued – as moose can be – by tens of thousands of tiny blood-suckers. In the case of moose, the vampires are winter ticks (Dermacentor albipictus), and finding a way to stake them has been tricky. However, recent research has found a potential – and microscopic – vampire hunter. [Read more…] about Moose, Winter Ticks and Fungi

Mycelium Brick & Fungal Homes: Much Room, No Mushrooms

November 26, 2021 by Paul Hetzler 2 Comments

For some reason, mushrooms have spawned more than their fair share of puns. As a kid I learned that they’re all fun-guys, and that the only rooms you can’t enter in a house are mushrooms. The last one might not work these days, as entire buildings are now being made of fungus.

Given that mold inside our homes can make us ill, you wouldn’t think that being surrounded by the stuff would be a great idea. But just like so many other things in life, “it depends.” As a building material, fungus is cheap, ubiquitous, and a renewable resource. But that’s not the best part. By dry weight, walls made of fungus are stronger than concrete and have better insulation value than polyurethane foam.

They are weather-proof, practically non-combustible, and oddly enough, resist getting moldy. [Read more…] about Mycelium Brick & Fungal Homes: Much Room, No Mushrooms