Nature walk looking for fungi

For this week's iNaturalist walk, I walked along the Chestnut Hill Reservoir looking for fungi. In total, the walk took me about 40 minutes. It was pretty overcast and cloudy with the temp being around 57 degrees with a slight breeze. Since I was specifically looking for fungi this time, it was definitely a more focused walk. I found it really difficult to find different types of fungi because whenever I thought I came across some, it usually ended up being moss. I did end up finding some interesting plants and flowers along the reservoir near the water including pokeweeds, grape family, and asters and allies. The fungi that I was eventually able to locate was always near a tree or rock. The fungi that I found were False Turkey-Tail, Crowded Parchment, Mossy Maze Polypore, and Thomson's Rosette Lichen. To me, these fungi all looked fairly similar when I was taking pictures of them. However, when I came to submit them to iNaturalist, they all came up as different types of fungi. Thus, this brought me be back to our discussion earlier in class when we talked about deciphering different species. We discussed how it can be difficult to differentiate species just off of visual appearances. In some cases, it may take more analysis of the species to identify the differences. Overall, this walk proved to be interesting and somewhat difficult to specifically find fungi!

Posted on October 4, 2022 11:05 PM by lmurtagh lmurtagh

Observations

Photos / Sounds

What

Typical Shield Lichens (Subfamily Parmelioideae)

Observer

lmurtagh

Date

October 4, 2022 11:02 AM EDT

Photos / Sounds

What

Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)

Observer

lmurtagh

Date

October 4, 2022 11:06 AM EDT

Photos / Sounds

What

Asters and Allies (Tribe Astereae)

Observer

lmurtagh

Date

October 4, 2022 11:09 AM EDT

Photos / Sounds

Observer

lmurtagh

Date

October 4, 2022 11:14 AM EDT

Photos / Sounds

What

Crowded Parchment (Stereum complicatum)

Observer

lmurtagh

Date

October 4, 2022 11:21 AM EDT

Photos / Sounds

What

False Turkey-Tail (Stereum ostrea)

Observer

lmurtagh

Date

October 4, 2022 11:21 AM EDT

Photos / Sounds

What

American Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)

Observer

lmurtagh

Date

October 4, 2022 11:26 AM EDT

Photos / Sounds

What

Milkweeds (Genus Asclepias)

Observer

lmurtagh

Date

October 4, 2022 11:32 AM EDT

Photos / Sounds

What

Thomson's Rosette Lichen (Physcia thomsoniana)

Observer

lmurtagh

Date

October 4, 2022 11:35 AM EDT

Comments

No comments yet.

Add a Comment

Sign In or Sign Up to add comments