Today the veil of fog never lifted and i walked out after 3pm. I had been in the studio preparing paper and looking at my collections. I remembered the velvet shanks I picked last week and went to check on the spore prints – they are a beautiful white as predicted and there is the ultimate proof for this variety. I made up my mind to visit their families again on the dead elms at the NE entrance to the park.
Identified as an Oyster Mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus meaning ‘side ear’ because it grows a lateral stalk like an ear, and oyster because of its wavy edge. It is a saprophytic mushroom, getting its nourishment by absorbing dissolved organic material and can be found on live or dying deciduous trees, especially beech. It traps and eats nematode worms using lassos on its gills
I have been trying to make a map of the Glen and find that my memory is missing parts that help to navigate around, how do the benches on the north side of the upper pond relate to the paths and topography around? I find the paths work in sweeping arcs, looping the hills, like a needle threading stitches, the benches spacing the intervals between the loops. This is quite difficult to photograph, but I have the 3 benches now, the Ramshackle, where the path loops up behind the PROSTO, then another rises behind the Burntbutt before falling as Self-heal avenue. The concrete steps then rise again at the end.
I found a rope on Self-heal Avenue, which is now a muddy track, and I guess it is from the Glen horsemen. I gather it up and loop it over a tree stump by the water’s edge at the Alder’s eddy.
I notice the water is much cleaner in the Bayou where we collected the oil yesterday.
