The Daily Bucket is a place to catch your casual observations of the natural world and turn them into a valuable resource. Whether it's the first flowers of spring or that odd bug in your basement, don't be afraid to toss your thoughts into the bucket. Check here for a more complete description.
Seattle
Whether it's the first flowers of spring or that odd bug in your basement, don't be afraid to toss your thoughts into the bucket.
This isn't an odd bug in the basement, but it is very odd. Into the Bucket it goes.
Here's where I found it:
June 30, 2011. Madrona snag.
This is a small Madrona snag that toppled last winter after standing dead for a number of years. It's on a west facing slope that has seen a number of large trees fail in the past year. This summer may be the the first it's ever been in bright dappled afternoon sun.
I spend a bit of time every day pulling invasive plants in the forest. I'd just pulled some from trailside edge of the snag when I noticed a blush of pale spots along the crumbly bits on its surface (picture below, top circle). Below them were a clump of red spots (picture below, lower circle).
This is the kind of situation where all notions of proper ladylike behavior disappear. This is the time to get down on your hands and knees, hunch over a rotting log and happily peer through a 10X magnifier.
Here's the close-up of the white dots: The little white spots looked very much like tiny mushrooms, or something with a swollen capsule on top of a stalk. Either way, it appears that the surface of the cap was either shedding its skin or exuding something like spores.
June 30, 2011. Close up, white mystery stuff.
The red clumps were similar, but their caps looked more like cheap make-up sponges dipped in iron oxide. I found them quite lovely.
June 30, 2011. Close up, red mystery stuff.
So what are these things? My best guess is that they're the fruiting structures of some kind of slime mold, but this is definitely a WAG, based solely on the presence of other slime molds in the forest right now. Fact is, I just don't know.
One last image for scale. The bright arc in the top right is the edge of a nickle.
The red clumps were a bit bigger than the white ones.
Anyone have knowledge? Thoughts? Guesses? WAGs?
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Where are you? What's happening there?
I'll drop in from time to time until late afternoon. Back in about a week.