3:00 snapshot #1086

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100 More Species #60: Coral spot

Coral spot Nectria cinnabarina

About a year ago I cut down a dozen or so Norway maple saplings and arranged the cut wood along a retaining wall by size. The stumps of the saplings act as brackets keeping the piles of cut wood in piles not spilling into the yard. Recently I've noticed the cut logs are breaking out in fungal skin conditions. A few have this beautiful coral spot acne, some have a dry rash of gray-lilac crust, and a couple manifested a growth of Porodisculus pendulus; there is also the unknown fungus in this other post.

Coral spot is one of those creatures I never noticed until I started making a habit of noticing everything. I first saw it in Forest Hills Cemetery I believe, and was stunned by it's beauty and mystery.

The spots produce two generations of spores, first asexual spores called conidia, then sexual spores called perithecia erupt from the same structures. Especially unlovely photographs of these stages are available here.


Also I found some bird's nest fungi growing on an old rotten board in the back of the yard. I thought for sure it was new for the project but nope I covered the same species in 2011.

3:00 snapshot #1087

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100 More Species #61: Striped garden caterpillar

Striped garden caterpillar Trichordestra legitima

I've complained about common names several times before on this blog, but it's hard to quibble with this one. I found this caterpillar while we were tearing down our vegetable garden for the fall. When I picked it up, it curled into a defensive position, and when I showed it to Alexis she initially mistook it for a striped garden snail. The resemblance was so close that I wondered if it was a case of mimicry, but it turns out this is a native caterpillar, and it is unlikely to have evolved a likeness to a European snail. More likely the curling helps face that lateral yellow stripe at potential predators to convince them that the larva is not edible.

This caterpillar's taste are extremely broad: while in that section of our yard it may have been eating bean plants, violets, goldenrod, aster, cherry, or raspberry. The adult is medium sized brown and gray moth that would have been really frustrating to try to identify, and then more so to learn that the species is named for the larva.