sherry yan
Greenwood Walk Report
Nov 13, 2021
Last Saturday morning, Claire, Kathy, Joe, Bill, Laura, I, and 10 visitors gathered at the Greenwood Park and conducted a nice walk in the forest.
It was sunny throughout our exploration. The temperature rose from 8 °C to 13 °C; wind speed increased from 2 km/h to 18 km/h, while humidity dropped from 89% to 50%.
Many fungi emerged since the storm early that week. We saw the fan-shaped false turkey-tails along the whole trip. Amber jelly fungi occupied a position on many fallen sticks. We also observed small amount of Asian Beauty and Coral fungi. Claire showed us the mirror method for mushroom identification without uprooting. In addition to fungi identification, Bill and Joe explained how slime mold changes color across its life stages.
We saw different kinds of small plants on the ground. Our visitors identified 2 species of the wintergreens, the striped wintergreen and the pipsissewa. We were also amazed by the soft, pine-shaped haircut mosses, shinning its green color under the sun. We also spotted some ghost pipes, an interesting plant species that does not perform photosynthesis on its own but gets energy from nearby oaks via the mycelium network underground.
We learned many ways of plant-insect interaction. Joe saw a trace on a white pine that was left by a moth. Claire talked about leaf miners whose larvae burrow between the two surfaces of a leaf. In addition, we observed a variety of galls, indicating a variety of insect species occupying them. There was once when we cut open a gall to see its inner structure (we thought it was okay to do so because we could tell the insect was already gone), and surprisingly found a little spider who make this gall its new home!
Enjoy your week!
Sherry