Pine Ridge Park Fungi Fieldtrip- Watching Fungi in Action

As I'm sure all of you remember we went on a field trip! Gwen was kind enough to ask Korena to come out and meet us at the Pine Ridge Park in Edmonds to teach us all about the wonders of fungi, and to give us a break from the monotonous task of looking at endless slides through a microscope.

Before this field trip started I really had no idea what to expect. Like most Washingtonians I've been hiking, and when I have free time I really enjoy going outside and enjoying all the beauty that's around us in this lovely area. That being said, I don't typically venture too far off the trail, and while I might see some things around me that I wonder about I have very little knowledge about plants and the like so I was really interested to see what was in store for us, and what Korena would have to say.

The first thing we stopped at was just an ordinary tree to my untrained eyes at first glance. However, this was probably the first point where I realized just how naive I really was. Korena quickly pointed out the several types of fungi growing on this tree that I had dismissed as common tree features I couldn't explain. Behold the humble lichen.

"Crusty Lichen" growing on a tree

"Powder Lichen" growing on a tree

 As we have learned about in class lichens are not technically fungi, but they are certainly not plants either. They are certain types of fungi living in a mutually beneficial relationship with either cyanobacteria or algae. Although comprised of two different kind of organisms lichens are often classified separately from these two groups simply because of the level of co-dependence between these two organisms. The bacteria cannot live without the fungi and vice versa. Fungi from phylum ascomycota are the ones which form lichens are they are the most diverse phyla of fungi, and they contain the fungi which do not produce fruiting bodies such as yeasts and blights.

This same tree also had a blight as well, and had some form of black rot which had gotten under his bark and was causing him to produce a ton of sap to try to push out the "infection" so to speak. I was not able to get a good picture of this rot in this particular tree, but I did get some examples of this same sort of thing in other trees farther down into the forest. I think what surprised me was that this powder lichen was not at all harmful to the tree. In looking at it, it looks very similar to the mold we see growing on our food sometimes when we've forgotten about it for too long, but it's not. The physical similarities between those two organisms is really interesting to me, and having the opportunity to learn more about these organisms has helped to clarify why some of these organisms look so similar.

As we continued on down the trail we found a log slightly off the path, and found more evidence of the fungi all around us.

Fungi decomposing log

In turning over this log we can see the ring of white fungi growing all over it slowly working to break this log down into nutrients. I'm not entirely sure what kind of fungi this is(Korena went over everything pretty quickly so my notes are a little sporadic), but to me it sort of looks like this log is molding which I think is kind of interesting.

As we continued on Korena kept talking about the forest, and the many adaptations that plants have developed in order to survive. For example, trees will only grow branches on one side of themselves if that is the only side with access to sunlight. Some trees will also grow over top of others in order to gain access to the sunlight that they need such as this guy we saw here:

The tree on the right here is growing up and around his buddy in order to have access to the resources it needs which is really interesting to me. Growing up we aren't really taught that plants are living organisms. I think on some level we know they are alive, but it's not emphasized like it is with animals for most children, and I think the fact that plants do these kinds of things to survive really shows that these things are in fact alive. Korena also talked about how the fungi in these forests have mycorrhiza which extend all underneath the forest floor and, in some cases, can even stretch across the entirety of the forest. One side of the forest can even somehow signal the other in the event of something like an oil spill or some kind of poison to help the forest brace itself for the challenges that are coming. It's really amazing to see how all these living things can work together to help each other while also competing for the same resources in the world.

While walking along, we also had the opportunity to see some conchs. Conchs are saprophytic and look like little shelf mushrooms growing out of a log. They are very fibrous and woody, and are not edible. I quickly realized how tough these guys are when Korena tapped one with her hand and it did nothing other than make a slightly hollow sound. She also mentioned that these guys do not have gills, but rather have little pores which they use to release their spores to the wind which is a very interesting adaptation.

Conch mushrooms growing out of a log

One of the last things we saw for the day were some mushrooms Korena told us she had been saving to show us. These little guys sort of look like the mushrooms you'd expect to see in Alice in Wonderland, with the little spots that they have, which I found to be really interesting as those were not any kind of mushroom that I had ever seen before. Korena was able to determine that this mushroom was part of basidiomycota and genus amanita which contains some of the most deadly mushrooms in the world such as the death cap. 

Unknown mushroom; Phylum Basidiomycota; Genus Amanita

I don't have a good photo of the underneath portion of the gills, but they were very clearly visible and were soft and pliable. Korena also talked about other things that could be used to identify mushrooms such as the presence of a ring on the stem and how attached the ring was, as well as the texture and hollowness or lack thereof in the stem of the mushroom. The fact that mushroom classification is so specific is really amazing to me, and does in fact make sense given the fact that there are some mushrooms that are so deadly poisonous.

Overall, this field trip was really interesting, and I'm glad we had the opportunity to go out into the world and see some real life examples of the things that we talk about in class.