On April 18th, my classmates and I had a Fungi Field Trip, which was in Pine Ridge Park near Edmonds Community College. The field trip started at 12:30 and ended at 2:30. I believed all the students had great fun and also learned many new things in this short period of time. Our instructor invited Korena, who is an instructor from UW to guide us. Korena left a deep impression to me because she was very nice and passionate. This is my first field Trip; it was full of fun and knowledge, so I enjoyed it so much. April 18th was a sunny day, which gave a great opportunity to us to have a field trip like this. Now, let me show you what I have learned from this funny Fungi Field Trip.
Figure 1:Different Kinds of Lichen on The Surface of The Tree
Lichen is a composite organism that raises on some living organism and in a symbiotic relationship. Different lichens have different colors, sizes and forms. As we can see, the two figures above show two different types of lichens. Lichen from the left figure seems like powders when I tried to touch them; the lichen from the right figure seems like some tiny plastic tree branches.
Figure 2:Parasitic Fungus Decompose Withered Tree Segment
Those fungus are decomposing this withered tree segment. Korena told us that this tree segment might takes hundred years to be degreed.
Figure 3:Tough Mushroom Growth On The Withered Tree Segment
On the other side of the same withered tree segment, there were some annual fungus. Korena said that those annual fungus were also be considered as tough mushroom without ture gills after she tried to pick them up from the withered tree segment. When I looked closer, I could see the surface of those tough mushroom were covered by dense and tiny holes; they were polypore.
Figure 4:Parasitic Fungus Growth
These mushroom were found by my classmates unexpectedly. As we can see, the mushrooms looked totally different to the previous tough mushroom, but both of them were polypore, which were a morphological group of basidiomycetes. Polypore means the mushrooms do not have gills to produce the spores but the tubes to produce.
Figure 5:Unknown Mushroom Were Found On The Roadside
Figure 6:Younger Mushroom was the Same Species From Previous Unknown Mushroom
When we kept walking, Korena found this great mushroom on the side of the road. Korena distinguished this mushroom was Amanita.
Kingdom: Fungi
Division: Basidiomycota
Class: Agaricomycetes
Order: Agaricales
Family: Amanitaceae
Genus: Amanita
The genus Amanita contains about 600 species of agarics including some of the most toxic known mushrooms found worldwide. Some of the mushrooms contain amatoxins, which are toxins and can cause liver failure, more serious is the cause of death. These include the death cap A. phalloides; species known as destroying angels, including A. virosa, A. bisporigera and A. ocreata; and the fool's mushroom A. verna. Let’s come back to this unknown mushroom, Korena considered that it either Amanita muscaria or Amanita pantherina.
For Amanita muscaria, is a mushroom and psychoactive basidiomycete fungus. This quintessential toadstool is a large white-gilled and white-spotted.
Figure 7:Unknown Mushroom With Different Angles to Observe
For Amanita pantherina, the cap color is always deep brown to hazel-brown to pale ochraceous brown. The gills are free, close to crowded.
We can see this unknown mushroom had a ring located under the cap and circled its stem although it almost fell off; the ring of this mushroom is the remnant of a membrane that covered the gills of the immature mushroom and ruptured as the cap grew. Also, there was a volva cover the bottom of the mushroom. Volva is a mycological term to describe a cup-like structure at the base of a mushroom.
Figure 8:The Phototripm of Tree
On figure 8, there was a slightly curved tree standing in a group of straight trees. This is because phototropism. Phototropism explains the growth of an organism that responds to light; plants are well known as phototropism. This is because phototropism can help plants to rearrange their chloroplasts from the leaves to maximize photosynthetic energy and promote growth. Therefore, this curved tree followed the sunlight in order to grow better and have more energy.
All in all, this field trip makes me learned more about fungi. Therefore, I highly recommend this Fungi Field Trip to other students. The most interesting thing for me is help me to distinguish whether the mushrooms are toxic or not. I like mushrooms because they are tasty, and I also willing to know more about them. Moreover, the plants which grow toward the sunlight teach me that in order to have more energy and become stronger, I have to be a person that grow toward the bright (knowledge).
Reference
"Amanita." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 01 May 2016.
"Amanita Muscaria." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 01 May 2016.
"Amanita Pantherina Var. Pantherina." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 01 May 2016.
"Edible Mushrooms: A Treat You Shouldn't Fear!" Edible Mushrooms. Web. 01 May 2016.
"Lichen." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 01 May 2016.
"Volva (mycology)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 01 May 2016.
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