The Urban Pantheist

My dad came up to visit on Saturday and we didn't have a plan of what to do. I drove us to Attleboro, since I'd been there relatively recently for the first time and enjoyed it. I was looking for the Natty Greene Tavern so we could get some lunch, but I found Capron Park first. We walked to a lovely little rose garden.


We both separately decided this orange rose was unusual and beautiful enough to stop and photograph it.


Of course, being who I am, I was much more interested in the fungal wildlife that had colonized the wet mulch around the roots of the roses. All around I found the same species--or perhaps species complex--Coprinellus micaceus, the mica cap mushroom. These were about half again larger than I usually see them, which makes me wonder how diverse the complex is in our part of the world.

( Snapshot hidden to protect the suddenly and surprisingly included in the snapshot project without proper notice )

Before the class I walked around looking for mushrooms--it had been extremely dry, and I wanted to make sure we were going to find some! I passed this guy on the path and we went our separate ways.
( Also some mushrooms )

This bloom of mica caps (Coprinellus micaceus) surprised us by appearing quite suddenly in our heavily used side yard.

Mica caps are pretty easy to recognize if you know what to look for: flecks of shiny material on the surface of the cap. It helps if you get to them before the rain washes the clean. Until fairly recently they were in the genus Coprinus, the "inky caps" which turn into black mush as they release their spores. In fact, when they were my 365 urban species #115, I used that scientific name. The revision occurred 5 years before I made my mistake, but news of mycological taxonomic reassignments takes time to spread. In a lecture I attended recently, mycologist Noah Siegel estimated that about 20% of the scientific names used in the most commonly used field guide (Lincoff's Audubon guide) are no longer valid. This is especially troublesome since that guide assigns common names to every species it list, in many cases translating the scientific binomial into English when there was no common name in use.

Mica caps are found everywhere in the world. They grow from dead roots and other wood, colonizing it once it has already been decomposed somewhat by other fungi. Their appearance in our yard suggests that the roots of a long-dead tree are buried beneath the grass.

See an amazing detail photo by cottonmanifesto: http://cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com/1345931.html

Coprinus micaceus, the mica cap, is one of the most urban and cosmopolitan of mushroom species. It was the first mushroom species I identified in a foreign city. It occurs virtually anywhere there are tree roots rotting in the ground. Why it thrives in urban areas is a mystery to me, though it seems that it must have accompanied Europeans on journeys around the world early on, probably as a stowaway in soil ballast.

I had the good fortune recently to photograph the mushrooms in several stages of development. Mushrooms are sometimes hard to identify because they change over time. The first thing you might notice about the photograph above is the shiny specks on the mushroom caps. This field marking is the origin of the mushroom's name, but it may not always be present. If the rain that encourages the fungus to produce mushrooms is profuse, the mica-like spots might be washed off the caps. ( Read more... )

To be honest, it was kind of a let down to be in Santiago after Easter Island.

Don't get me wrong, Santiago is a vibrant, bustling, cosmopolitan city--but maybe that was the problem. Easter Island is so other-worldly, so unique, that trying to cram another tour in seemed superfluous. Our city tour driver, Gabriel, was very nice, but the tour was not terribly interesting. I have spared you photographs of my father and I standing stiffly in front of a race track, of a government building guard, of a convenience market called "kali," because they weren't very good pictures of not very interesting things. Finally, Gabriel took us to a rich neighborhood on a huge hill.


Manqueue Hill

( four more pictures )