The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
October, 2014
Pacific Northwest
Tis the season for saprophytes!
Fungi and Slime Molds emerge into view as we settle into autumn. Leaves are falling, fruits and flowers are done...now a diverse array of perennial and ephemeral decomposers is decorating dormant surfaces with strange colors and weird shapes. Conks and mushrooms, dog vomit and witch's butter, stinkhorns and toadstools....reports are flooding in from all over the country by Backyard Science observers.
Cool temperatures and rainfall are common triggers for mushrooms, the "fruiting" bodies of some kinds of Fungi. These creatures live invisibly below our feet most of the year, their long tiny threads branching and networking through the ground, feeding off expired plant and animal debris, recycling those nutrients. Here in the Pacific Northwest, our soaking autumn rains have invigorated the subterranean funguses, inspiring them to rise up and spread their spores.
One of the many common mushrooms popping up all over my neighborhood lately is especially wonderful. Called both Shaggy Mane and Ink Cap, Coprinus comatus has a spectacular method of exposing its spores for dispersal: it digests its own body.
Starting as a shaggy egg-shaped bulge, it emerges in a few days as a slender frilly ivory-colored cap on a veiled stem:
Then the hem of its skirt turns black, as the gills begin to auto-digest, dissolving the cap into a gooey glistening mess that looks a lot like ink.
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The auto-digest stage goes pretty fast. All the pics above are from a patch of mushrooms, in different stages. To see how quick a mushroom turns into ink I watched one individual a few days ago.
(All photos by me. In Lightbox...click to enlarge)
I collected this one at the beginning of its "black-hem" stage. You can see how the cap curls up as it dissolves, revealing the spores to the air. That is the usefulness of this adaptation.
Took it home on a salal leaf. It's 1 pm.
By 7 pm that evening, it's about one third dissolved, with a thin black fluid seeping out:
Next morning, the mushroom is just a stem awash in watery black fluid. I tried out this natural ink, and as you can see, it does a decent job! How well it stands up to sunlight etc might be a future experiment.
Purportedly this ink was used in the olden days so sez the intertubes but I don't have any primary source for that. Nevertheless, in a pinch it is there for free, and it works.
Here's a source with more info on Coprinus comatus. It describes a rare giant variety of this species, C. c. colosseus, a foot and a half tall, that lives in the Pacific Northwest. I'm keeping an eye out for that one. This is the season!
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The Daily Bucket is now open for your nature observations this autumn day. Any interesting plants, animals or decomposers? Changes?
"Spotlight on Green News & Views" is posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time and Wednesday at 3:30 on the Daily Kos front page. It's a great way to catch up on diaries you might have missed. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.