Nearing the Summit

Decidedly rockier near the summit.

With various kinds of vegetation trying to hang on in what can be, I think, a pretty harsh environment.

High Knob Tower Trail

George Washington National Forest

Trail Ornaments

High Knob Tower Trail

George Washington National Forest

Going Down

I found going down the Hightop Mountain Trail as interesting as going up.

Hairy Parchment?

I'm still not able to positively identify more than probably a handful of mushrooms, if even that many.

What I have learned to do, however, is to pay close--well, closer--attention to the details surrounding said mushrooms. In the case of the mushroom shown above, I 'm pretty sure that it's attached to the what remains of a deciduous tree. That alone, I understand, whittles down the possibilities. Now, as to whether it is actually a Hairy Parchment mushroom, who knows? It certainly share a number of its characteristics. Spotted along the Enfield Lookout Trail near Ware, Massachusetts.

Decay

Taskinas Creek Trail

York River State Park

Mushrooms #3

Greensprings Interpretive Trail

Mushrooms #2

Greensprings Interpretive Trail

Mushrooms #1

Greensprings Interpretive Trail

Careful!

Be careful where you step! Those might be . . . mushrooms. Actually, living in a town where horse drawn carriages and oxen are as common a sight as cars and trucks, it pays to watch where you step anyway. And at first, I'll have to confess, I thought that's what these were--little love offerings from one of our friendly animals.

Polypore

 

Robert Frost Trail

Mount Toby Recreation Area

Mycology

 

In retrospect, give my lifelong fascination with fungi of all sorts, maybe I should have been a mycologist. In any case, I simply couldn't pass up the opportunity these before and after shots of the fungus I tentatively identified in a previous post as Brefeldia maxima.

What?

 

When I first spotted this, I thought it was something someone had stuffed into the tree's crevice. Only after looking at it again more closely did I realize that it is yet again another variety (Brefeldia maxima?) of fungus. 

Ghosts

 

 

Taskinas Creek Trail, York River State Park

Lost World

 

Taskinas Creek Trail, York River State Park

Taskinas Creek Trail

 

Shaggy-stalked Lepiota

 

 

I can never be certain about mushrooms. They're just such a dizzying variety that any identification I make is, at best, a wild guess. And, anyway, my interest in them isn't so much scientific as artistic. I just think they're fascinating to look at and fun to photograph. There also seem to be a lot of them around this month.

 

Eastern Cauliflower

 

"Sparassis (also known as cauliflower mushroom) is a genus of parasitic and saprobic mushroom characterised by its unique shape and appearance and is found around the globe. Its appearance can be described as similar to a sea sponge, a brain or a head of cauliflower, hence its popular name." -- Wikipedia

Slime?

 

 

 

I do wonder how many times in a week people pass by this stuff and think to themselves, "Ugh! That's disgusting!" Yeah, well, I agree. On the other hand, I'm also reminded of this little piece of wisdom found in my National Audubon Society Field Guide to Mushrooms: 

 

"Mushrooms [or more broadly, fungi] also play a vital role in the world's ecosystem. Many land plants could not thrive in their absence, since some establish a symbiotic relationship with fungi, exchanging essential nutrients. And were it not for mushrooms, which hasten decomposition, many dead plants and fallen trees would take far longer to decay." 

Worker