Urban Nature Pictures 2/9, plus random

Ice on the bank of the Muddy.

Back a few months ago--maybe a full year ago?--I opened the floor to questions about mushrooms, to help me prepare for teaching a class on the subject. I got a question about "marine" or "aquatic" mushrooms. I explained that the way a mushroom works, releasing spores into the air, wouldn't really work underwater, so there weren't any I knew about and probably weren't any. But wouldn't you know it some plucky mycologists in Oregon of all places found fleshy fungal fruiting bodies in the flow of a river. It doesn't appear that the scientists completely understand how it works yet, but they have named it and put it in a genus alongside some well known species, though at the moment it is the only known mushroom in this habitat. I should have been paying better attention, as it's been known about for at least two years. This article has a picture.

While I was walking the dogs in the Arboretum on Sunday, a young man stopped me and asked if he could take my picture. After a quick snap and a couple more questions I gave him one of my Muddy River project cards. Today he posted an article (for a journalism class it appears) about the arboretum to his blog. His pictures of the place are nice (are those beautyberries?) except for the weird bag man with his two pit bulls--what a character!

Finally, Alexis wants this house.