Nature Noticings

For most of us, the word "mushroom" conjures an image of the mushrooms found in every grocery store. They have a stem, a rounded cap, and gills under the cap where the spores form. However, the reality of mushrooms is not that simple. Fungus is mostly out of sight: underground, within dead logs, in the leaf litter. This invisible fungus is the main body of the organism. The bits that pop up above ground are the spore-producing fruiting bodies, and they can take on a dizzying array of forms. As an analogy, think of all the body plans in the animal branch of evolution's family tree: they range from jellyfish to dragonflies to horses. The fungal branch has just as much weird and wonderful diversity. Autumn is the perfect time of year to appreciate this wonderful weirdness in the Pacific Northwest. Here is a sampling of some of the stranger fungal fruit that I've come across recently.  Coral fungus ( Ramaria sp.) This ghostly candelabra is coral fungus. It does not, trag...