charlottejmoore's Journal

Yesterday I took an evening walk around the Newton Campus. The sun was setting and it was getting darker. It also rained the day before, so it was still a little damp inside the woods. The main thing I noticed, as most would in fall, was the different colored leaves. I observed most of the leaves on the ground were the brown and orange ones, and the leaves in the trees were more commonly green and yellow. I enjoyed looking at all the different types of trees, and never really thought about the diversity of just trees in a small area. Two specific trees were very interesting to me. One tree observed to be a Beech tree had a very interesting color bark and were very tall and beautiful. The other tree I wasn't sure the genus, but the bark appeared to have a braided texture which was very unique and beautiful.

I took another walk around Edmonds' Park today to observe some fungi. It was a crisp, fall afternoon, and was very dry and windy. I observed many trees with lichen. Although, the color and appearance of the lichen differed greatly on the different trees and areas of the park. There were also a lot of shelf fungi on fallen trees that mostly differed in size. I observed a couple of different mushrooms-- one I found inside of a tree stump. I found that many mushrooms/fungi were growing specifically on fallen birch trees. I also saw a very unique looking thin tree which was connected to a much larger tree by what appeared to be some sort of rootlike lichen. This observation reminded be of the symbiotic relationships studied in this unit. It was interesting to walk on the same trails I did as last week and notice many different observations!

Today I went on a walk around Edmands' Park, right behind the Newton Campus. There was a big rainstorm earlier in the day, but it was sunny and warm out when I was walking around. Although, it was still pretty damp inside the woods, in the spots with a lot of tree coverage. These damper areas are where I saw most of the fungi. In the drier areas of the park, there was little to no visible fungi. The majority of the fungi found was growing on fallen trees. But, the lichen and some of the fungi were on living trees. There were also a lot of squirrels and chipmunks in the woods.