One of the very first things that was pointed out to us was the growth of blight on leaves. Blight is a plant disease caused by fungi. It was also the thing that killed Earth in the Movie Interstellar, It is only a matter of years now before blight rises to the top of the food chain and eliminates all of your food. BEWARE. Just kidding, when I asked Korena about this she told me that there were many different types of fungi that actually eat blight so there is a natural balance keeping blight in check.
Somewhere down the trail we encountered two different types of conchs, which are saprophytic fungi that are comprised mostly of lignin rather than chitin in those of other fruiting mushrooms beloning to the phylum Basidiomycota. the result of having so much lignin makes conchs have very tough exteriors. As explained my Korena, conchs form when a fungal pathogen kills a tree and after the tree falls of begins to rot, the body of the conch then starts to form.
One of the terms that Korena used was brown rot, which she used to explain a tree pathogen that kills an inside of a tree under the bark layer, fortunately we were able to see this in the making as there was a tree that had been severely damaged and the inside of the tree was exposed for observation.
No to the dangerous one! We were able to find a mushroom belonging to the genus Amanita, which is the same genus as the death cap, the most deadly mushroom currently known to us. We were able to spot two of them about 2 meters apart which could belong to the same mycelial network. Here is the mushroom featured with the talented hand model Yasmin Dunn.
From the bottom of the cap, we can see many gills which is where the spores are released from. When I toughed the gills they felt very soft and smooth polyurethane texture.
There were also other plants and fungi that were shown to us I was not able to photograph or document them. We were able to see lichen growing on tree bark, both powder and crusty lichen were present in the park. Along with the lichens we also saw some bryophytes, which are mosses, they grew on the ground and up on trees.
This trip was a very positive experience for me and I look forward to learning more about fungi in the future, my interest in the subject has grown greatly.
Happy to lend a hand anytime Chris! :v It's really interesting to know something eats blight! I hadn't thought about it but that's a really important factor as to why your Interstellar reference was just a reference and not a reality. As a professional hand model, I can confirm that the mushroom way super silky. I guess it's because they're filamentous? I'd like to echo the positive sentiment, I definitely had a good time running around looking at all the fungal diversity!
ReplyDeleteHey, Chris! Thanks for sharing your info about blight. I did not realize that it was the same organism from Interstellar! I also particularly like your photo of Yasmin hand modeling while holding the basidiomycete. It shows the mushroom’s gills in great detail and adds to your post, in my opinion. Overall, your photos depict each subject of the field trip quite nicely!
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