More Missouri fungi and other spring woodland finds--Polyporus arcularius

Well! It’s turning out to be a good thing I got so far behind in my posts—if I was up to date I would have nothing to post now. It is so dry here I’m not even bothering to hike until we get some good rain. I am frightened.

But here’s a few things from April 2013—when the world was moist…



Polyporus arcularius. According to one source, this mushroom has 31 synonyms! How are we supposed to keep up?



The underside of the cap of this polypore. There is a little smudge just right of center, it’s a Collembola, a springtail. I didn’t see it until this was on my monitor. They’re only about 1/16” long. Springtails are everywhere. One species is the “snow flea” of legend, that is sometimes out on snow on sunny late winter days! I have never seen one of those.

They jump by means of a kind of spring-loaded catapult called a furcula. Springtails are considered indicators of good soil health (not necessarily in your houseplants, though. There can be huge localized populations of them, more than a potted plant can handle).



I had a little side-hobby of confusing these with Polyporus alveolaris because the pore surface is similar. I think I got it now though. These have an obvious stem, and P. alveolaris runs heavy on the orange side.



I peeked inside a dead tree and saw this. Wood rot forms are determined by which kind of rot is working on it (also assorted wood-chewing insects).



These things happen…

I’m not trying to be a tough guy, but I do like bones. Probably gained appreciation of them from an outstanding figure structure drawing class in college. Barry Schactman, wherever you are, thank you for being of the old school!



Gee, those skull sutures look just like a meandering river.



Above, a wet sycamore seed ball, darkened after a nice spring rain. This may seem pretty mundane, but later (in the past) I found something so cool about sycamore seed balls I’m including this as a warm-up.



A tiny wrinkled Hackberry seed pod.