#mycology education

[fanciedfacts]

Just one drop and you're history "The Deadly Death Cap Mushroom"

[ketrinadrawsalot]

Fungi February: The candy cap's unique aroma makes it one of the few mushrooms that are just as good in desserts as in entrees. As a little brown mushroom, there are numerous lookalikes, some of which are toxic.

Disclaimer: Don’t rely on pictures of cute mushrooms with eyes to accurately identify edible mushrooms. At best the wrong one will taste bad, at worst it’ll be deadly!

[rebeccathenaturalist]

What Are Lithophytes?

Originally posted on my website at https://rebeccalexa.com/what-are-lithophytes/

Ask most people what plants need to grow in, and they’ll say “soil” or “dirt”, right? And for the majority of terrestrial plants that’s the case. But given the sheer scale of biodiversity and the ability of species to make use of any niche–no matter how small–left unoccupied, there are of course exceptions. Take epiphytes, for example, that cling to the bark of trees and other plants. Rather than drawing nutrients and water from soil, they instead absorb what they need from the air. Psammophytes also get what they need from the air, but instead sink their root system into shifting sand dunes.

I am especially fascinated by lithophytes. “Litho-” means “stone”, and so a lithophyte is simply a plant that grows on stone. There are two main types of lithophyte. Epilithic lithophytes grow on a stone’s surface, and a crevice in the stone may be populated by endolithic lithophytes. Some of these plants can only grow on stone, so they’re described as obligate lithophytes, but their facultative lithophyte neighbors are those that are able to colonize both stone and soil or another substrate at the same time–some lithophytes can even live as tree-dwelling epiphytes instead!

Like epiphytes, a lithophyte may have some ability to absorb water and nutrients from the air. But they also capitalize on anything that ends up washed into their roots by rain. Endoliths may find that over time debris accumulating in their crevice offers a much-needed resource boost. As part or all of a lithophyte dies, the surrounding plants extract nutrients from the decaying matter–nothing goes to waste in nature, after all. They do not, as a general rule, have a negative effect on the rocks themselves; while some rock-dwelling lichens may chemically weather the stone beneath them, lithophytic plants simply use the rock as a convenient surface to take root.

Arbuscular mycorrhizae within a root as seen under a microscope

What I find really cool is that lithophytes can be mycorrhizal! Their roots are pierced by colonies of various arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi that draw up nutrients from the soil and share them with the plants. While this is a very common relationship in nature–four out of every five vascular plant species uses arbuscular mycorrhizal networks–lithophytes seem to have cultivated a greater concentration of these helpful fungi.

A moss-covered rock is often someone’s first encounter with lithophytes. Lacking proper roots, mosses hang onto the stone with tiny rhizomes. Over time they might cover its entire surface, and if said surface is relatively flat and protected from weather and other erosive forces, their decaying remains could be the very beginning of a new patch of soil.

But it’s not just the little bryophytes like mosses that can eke out a living on a rock. More complex vascular plants may also take root on or within stone. One of my favorite ferns, the licorice fern (Polypodium glycyrrhiza) commonly grows as an epiphyte on trees in the Pacific Northwest, but given the right opportunity it will colonize a suitable crevice in a cliff. Orchids may have a reputation for being difficult to care for in captivity, but in the wild there are a lot of lithophytic species. Many, like Dendrobium teretifolium or many Phalaenopsis species, can also live quite well as epiphytes on a tree or other plant. And the wallflower, Erysimum cheiri, got its common name for its tendency to grow out of cracks in rocky slopes.

Nepenthes campanulata

Unsurprisingly, some carnivorous plants make their homes on rocks, and their carnivory allows them access to much-needed nutrients in an otherwise limited setting. The pitcher plant Nepenthes campanulata often grows in colonies on cliff faces. Heliamphora exappendiculata, another pitcher plant, will happily grow both in wetlands and on constantly damp rocks. Sanderson’s bladderwort (Utricularia sandersonii) doesn’t eat insects, but instead sucks up microscopic organisms using bladders the plant buries under nearby soil or sediment.

One more thing: are the plants you see growing in gravel also lithophytes? Not necessarily. There may be soil beneath the gravel that the plant is exploiting. Or the gravel itself may be part of a mineral soil–one that has a lot of stone and not much organic material. A true lithophyte is going to be attached to a rock or rooted in its crevice, though it’s possible to find lithophytes growing on stones that, through weathering, may be feeding fragments into a nearby mineral soil over time.

Did you enjoy this post? Consider taking one of my online foraging and natural history classes or hiring me for a guided nature tour, checking out my other articles, or picking up a paperback or ebook I’ve written! You can even buy me a coffee here!

[learnplants]

Back again! Today, we have a very spooky fungus, scientifically called Hydnellum peckii, or commonly Devil's Tooth! It's a non-toxic fungus that, despite its name, is actually beneficial for conifer forests, and is often found in late summer and autumn!

Devils tooth grows about 10cm tall at most, but as small as 3cm! The cap is between 3-8 cm across when fully developed and is usually round but can be oval or multi-lobed! The young caps also secrete a red ooze as they grow, but generally stops when it reaches maturity!

Underneath the cap, the fungus doesn't have gills! It instead has spines, but very small ones, being between 1-5mm long and below 1mm in diameter!

The stem is quite variable, being as tall as 5 or 6cm but it's been seen as small as 0.5cm, but this is because the fungus stem is predominantly underground!

The fungus has a beneficial relationship with conifererous trees, sometimes called a symbiotic relationship, but in the fungus world, it can be called 'ectomycorrhizal'! The tree will give the fungal system, or mycelium, sugars, made during the photosynthesis process, and the fungus will give the tree access to more nutrients, because the fungus can burrow deeper than the trees roots! What a good friend!

The fungus derived its name from the greek word for 'edible mushroom' "hudnon"! The peckii comes from honouring an American mycologist called Charles Horton Peck!

Overall, Hydnellum peckii, or devils tooth fungus, is a beneficial fungus for conifer trees and an edible mushroom for people, albeit a very bitter and not tasty one! Fell free to like, comment and reblog, and follow for more! Now, without further delay, here it is!

[science-for-the-masses]

I'm back posting this week! To make up for not posting for a week, I'm sharing a bonus article today. I'm pandering to pop culture; it's all about parasitic fungus.

[raptorqueen]

Going through a mushroom book I got when I was younger; Mushrooms & Toadstools, An Illustrated Guide, by Jiří Baier and Bohumil Vančura. Learn more on my insta 🍄

Music by Hakaisu (Mellow Skies)

[mossyisme]

pinned!

hi all!! it’s mossy!

I’m gonna change up this blog a bit - stop spamming so many random reblogs!!! gonna be a bit more purposeful and tagged (or atleast try!)

see my new carrd in my bio! and tags below will be updated with what tags  i use regularly!

[the-distantprince]

Here are some of the illustrations I’ve done so far (i should add perithecia)! I have Lichens of the North Woods by Joe Walewski. I wish I got a guide that covers New York better.

I have yeast on there as it’s an example of a symbiotic partner that’s not part of the standard pair or triad. It’s a Tremella yeast that is in a symbiotic relationship with and the yellow green lichen Lethara vulpina on the left (as I understand it)

Hi I’m planning out a lichen zine. I’m hoping to have an approachable but more in depth little booklet. Do you have any suggestions for what info I should include and what I can cut?

I’m torn on using specific names for things like reproductive structures and going into more of the subtypes of body structures.

This is a debate I (and many other lichenologists) have all the time within ourselves. They are so so many specific terms. And there are specific terms to describe those specific terms. And it never ends. So where to meet in the middle? A few terms I think are necessary to introduce:

Symbiosis

Mycobiont (Ascomycete) and Photobiont (green algae vs cyanobacteria)

Thallus, its layers (cortex, photobiont layer, medulla, rhizines), and the major growth forms (foliose, fruticose, crustose, squamulose)

Ascoma/fruiting bodies (apothecia and perithecia)

Asexual propagules (isidia, soredia, phyllidia)

Substrate (corticolous, saxicolous, terricolous)

I have a great little lichen field guide written by Dr. Erin Tripp, Field Guide to the Lichens of White Rocks (Boulder, Colorado), that I bought specifically because I think she does a masterful job of balancing accuracy and approachability. I recommend checking it out! Good luck! Sounds like a great project! Consider me an enthusiastic supporter.

[themushroombogwitch]

I went searching for mushrooms in the garden of my work but theres none!!

Next shift I'll be looking on the trees as well as the mulch and grass.

Im genuinely surprised not to find any, as the light conditions and environment are perfect for some common agrocybe's and even Australian honey fungus!

[fanciedfacts]

The deadly Death Cap Mushroom —

It takes one drop of this deadly mushroom to kill an adult. It's ordinary looking, yet very potent.

[ketrinadrawsalot]

Fungi February: The lobster mushroom is not actually a mushroom, but a parasitic fungus. The fungus significantly alters its host, changing the shape, texture, taste, and even chemical composition!

Disclaimer: Don’t rely on pictures of cute mushrooms with eyes to accurately identify edible mushrooms. At best the wrong one will taste bad, at worst it’ll be deadly!

[rebeccathenaturalist]

So. ID apps. Do I use them in my classes? Yes, but only iNaturalist, because you get an additional layer of verification by actual human beings rather than just the initial algorithmic suggestions. And, more importantly, I stress again and again and again that apps are NOT to be the only tool you use, but need to be used in conjunction with field guides, online groups, and other tools, which we also discuss in class. This is especially true if you're planning to eat anything you pick.

I get incredibly frustrated by how ID apps are often touted as all you need to identify animals, plants, and fungi. (I've even seen them described as "a Master Naturalist in your pocket".) Yes, it's nice to have a convenient tool on your phone that allows you to take a picture of something and get a suggestion of what it is. But that's all it is--a suggestion. iNaturalist, Google Lens, PlantSnap, and other apps are incapable of critical thinking and observation skills. All they can do is take the visual, temporal, and location data that you give them and churn up suggestions based on whatever they already have in their databases.

Nature identification is a detail-oriented skill that takes time and practice to learn, and if you want to do it right there aren't any one-step shortcuts. Can an app potentially narrow down the possible species you're observing? Sure. But YOU still have to be the one to do the actual work in determining whether the species the app has suggested is the one you're looking at in person or not; you CANNOT just take the app at its word, because apps can often be wrong.

And this is even more the case when we're talking about edible mushrooms, many of which have lookalikes. (Trying to figure out which Little Brown Mushroom you have can be an exercise in frustration, to say the least.) While there are a lot of people getting into foraging who are willing to do the actual work needed to determine a given mushroom's species, there are unfortunately also those who just want quick and easy answers without a lot of effort, and those are the people who are going to go no further than the app's results. The articles that promote apps as the quick and easy answers these people want aren't helping, either.

By the way, I am ALWAYS happy to help people find resources to help them with identifying various beings in nature. I'm also fine with taking a look at photos and giving my perspective on what something may be (though, again, don't use me as your only source.) While I do teach foraging, I am first and foremost a nature identification instructor, and I want to help people go about learning the life forms around them correctly (and in the case of edible species, safely.)

[blushing-concubus]

Majors and Minors

Request: Yes

Info: Everyone is 18 or older. NRC, RSA, and, NBC are all actual collages. Litteraly just what majors and minors the I think twst cast would have.

Tw: None(?)

I will warn you; this is really long and these might get changed over time. I'm also treating NRC as a catch-all school that can easily clear the way for more advanced courses in specific fields later, weather that be on campus or out sourced.

Heartslabyul:

Riddle was going for a medical degree, but after his overblot and some consideration he made the switch to a general law degree, for now, but is considering where he wants his future to go along that path. He is going to keep himself CPR and first aid certified though. 

Trey, in high school, was part of a dentistry vocational for a year, but had to leave for personal reasons. He's now studying Dentistry full time. He plants on becoming a dental nurse, rather than a dentist.

Cater has changed his degree once, in his first year he was going for a liberal arts degree, before switching to a Marketing major, and Broadcasting minor. He's pretty stuck on what he actually wants to do and feels like it's too late to follow any dreams he had when he was younger.

Ace, as of now, is undecided. I have made jokes about him dropping out and becoming a magician before, and I can genuinely see him doing that. So as of right now I don't actually have one for him.

Deuce is also undecided. There's a ton of options and it's pretty overwhelming for him, especially because he struggles academically. Despite that, I think he'd either end up with an Education or Engineering degree.

Savannaclaw:

Leona, for the longest time, did not pick a major and it was going to get him kicked out. He could've gone for a liberal arts degree, but decided to go for Humanities instead. He's really well suited to it in all honesty.

Ruggie is going for an Economics degree for a multitude of reasons (most of which are monetary), but I can definitely see him with something else, like a culinary arts degree, too. He's got a job lined up with Leona after graduation, but going more in depth on money management never hurts, right?

Jack is going for Sports Science, he's had a plan for years now and he isn't going to let anything stop him.

Octavinelle:

Azul is going for a Business degree, shocker. I don't feel like I really need to elaborate on that (but I will anyway), but I can see him with an economics degree instead. He's also minoring in food science. He's actively running a cafe on campus and his family has a restaurant back home that he will likely take over, and expand, when his mother and step-father retire.

Jade also is going for a business degree, again i don't feel like i need to elaborate on that. He's studying for a biology (Mycology) Minor. His family has something going on, but no one wants to acknowledge what. Out of the two of them Jade is likely to take over the actual business side of things and if not, bothering Azul forever is an option. 

Floyd has changed his degree six times in two years, currently he's undecided. I can kinda see him going for a business/fine arts degree focused on fashion (specifically shoes). He doesn't struggle academically, but does struggle to focus and make long-term decisions. Jade and Azul are doing their best to.. encourage (?) guide (?) Him to a path he could stick to.

Scarabia:

Kalim is studying Business Management as a major and Linguistics as a minor. His family are pretty well-known merchants, and he is going to inherit that business, so equipping himself with those skills is a good decision. Even if most of the time he does find it extremely boring. 

Jamil is also majoring in Business Management, mostly because of his position with Kalim. It's not something he particularly wants, so it's really out of obligation. He's taking Food Science and Fine Arts [Dance] as minors, which he actually enjoys. 

Pomefiore:

Vil has a tight schedule both in and out of school. The degrees he's going for reflect that. He's double majoring in Marketing and Acting, and minoring in Business, Alchemy, and Cosmetology. His career as an actor is very important to him, but he knows that putting all his eggs in one basket isn't the smartest idea, thus his expanded options.

Rook is going for a Biology major, no one is shocked number two. He is also minoring in fine arts (poetry), and has an Archery scholarship that's paying for a good chunk of his tuition. He hasn't told anyone what he's going to do after graduation and most people are too afraid to ask.

Epel is majoring in Agriculture. When college is over he plans on maintaining and improving his family's farm. He currently doesn't have any minors in mind, but I can definitely see him with a fine arts (sculpture) minor.

Ignihyde:

Idia is double majoring in Engineering and computer operations. He doesn't have any minors, but dabbles in other subjects as a personal hobby. He also has an Esports scholarship, not that he needed it.

Ortho is also double majoring, but is going for cyber security and data analytics. He doesn't have any minors right now, either, and he's not officially part of any clubs or curriculars yet. He's trying to figure out his place, but also believes what ge was “made” for is all he can be.

Diasomnia:

Malleus is studying Magic theory and Application & Architecture, he also is taking magic history and world history as minors. He doesn't really need to be studying anything, so this is more of a desire to learn than anything. 

Lilia is going for Magic history and World history. He should be getting a doctorate by this point, but we're not going to talk about that. He thinks it's good to refresh and gain new knowledge every now and again. 

Silver is majoring in World History and minoring in Equine studies. Lilia has told him stories about the world as he grew up and he wants to learn more, even if he will likely spend all of his life in Briar Valley. 

Sebek is undecided as of now, but I can see him majoring in Home Economics later, as odd as it sounds. He already takes pride in what is essentially home making, believing it to be what a knight should do, so taking it to the next step would make sense for him.

Ramshackle:

As a base like for Yuu [Reader] they’re going for a photography major (unless requested otherwise) and Grim is going for Magic theory and Application. Because they count as one whole student this counts as a double major. They are required to take remedial classes, because both of them lnow fuck all about this world apparently, and additional classes that focus on familiar training and care. Grim doesn't like that.

Crowley has “gifted” them a “full ride scholarship” as long as they world as his “errand boy.” In reality this is a deal NRC has always had, if a student is chosen by the mirror and cannot pay tuition at all then they are given the option to work for the school until graduation to pay for their place. 

Royal Sword Academy 

Niege I imagine takes his job as an actor just as seriously as Vil, but in a different way. He also has been shown to be a singer in some capacity. So he's double majoring in Acting and Music theory. 

Che'nya… I don't know much about him, I don't know much about Niege either but I can at least guess with him. All I really have to go off of from Che'nya is his appearance and personality, and from that alone I think he'd be going for a Graphic Design degree with a minor in fashion design. I don't know why, but something about him makes me think he would make clothes. 

Noble Bell College 

Rollo is studying Magic Theory and Application, not because he likes it, but because he feels it'll further his goals to eradicate magic (he's a lunatic, someone punch him). He's also taking religious studies as a required course, but he's taking it seriously and made that his minor.

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Where does the word "fungi" come from and why does it sound like "fun guy"?

Not just a fun guy, but a specific fun guy- Gus. Fun Gus (1887-1991) was the nickname of Gus Vanderbeatnik, for whom the entire kingdom of fungal organisms was named.

Naturally, fungi existed long before Gus, having first evolved around 1750 when several college roommates left some macaroni and cheese out for literally months and it grew a new type of bacteria, which would quickly develop mycelium and finally, fruiting bodies that we now call mushrooms. The organisms quickly spread across the globe.

Vanderbeatnik was born in 1887 in what would later become the state of Rhode Island. Educated in mycology from youth, Gus was known among mushroom foragers for his clever wits and ability to eat literally any mushroom he fund without ill effects. Thus he became a popular test subject to learn whether any mushroom was actually edible, without harm. Gus had an interesting digestive quirk- His stomach acid had an extra enzyme that could break down Hocstercorefacitbarfus, the toxin which makes some mushrooms poisonous. He thus knew when he had been poisoned as it would still make him a bit loopy, but was not hurt. This medical loopiness also made him very funny, spouting nonstop mycology jokes and social commentary, hence his name, and soon the name of the entire fungal kingdom.

Fun Gus lived to the ripe old age of 104, having analyzed over 3000 types of fungus, written numerous books on the subject, and amused thousands with his hilarious rambles under the influence of various fungi. He died in 1991 after a waterskiing accident, when one of his skis nearly impaled a rabid walrus, which in turn shot him with a uzi. He died that same day of Syphilis.

[mushroominaforest]

我不會說法文但我可以講中文>:3

我從來沒有想過我會在雨世界的粉絲圈裡學真菌學，不過蠻有趣的

This is the first one that I have no idea what’s going on lol. Luckily for me, google translate exists!!!

See, that’s just what I do. I suck you in with fandom posts, and then BAM!!! MYCOLOGY EDUCATION!!! Thank you btw!!! :D