This week in the woods, we went seeking color in the mostly-dreary stick season landscape and found this patch of Bisporella. These tiny, bright yellow fungi grow on decaying stumps and logs – typically on wood that has already shed its bark. There are two similar species, best distinguished by size: B. citrina (lemon disco, aka lemon drops), and the even-smaller B. sulfurina, which according to Timothy Baroni’s Mushrooms of the Northeastern United States and Canada, maxes out in diameter at about 1.5 mm. Our best guess is that what we photographed is lemon disco.
Associate editor Meghan McCarthy McPhaul contributed two of the images to this week’s blog. The first is of a young tamarack in its late autumn color. As noted in this Outside Story column from our archive, tamarack is one of the last forest trees to change color in autumn and it’s an oddball; it’s the only deciduous conifer in our region and has a number of special adaptations that allow it to survive in marginal habitats, up to the edge of the Canadian tundra. For example, it’s a champion recycler:
Tamaracks and other larches are able to reabsorb a high proportion of nitrogen from their needles before these are shed – perhaps 20 percent more than other species of trees. This is a big savings on an essential nutrient for next year’s growth.
Tamarack also responds to cooling by pushing water outside of cell walls, where ice won’t tear tissues – a cold weather survival trick shared by spruces and some other northern trees, as well as (recently noted in this blog) wood frogs and spring peepers.
McPhaul also photographed these mountain ash berries along a hiking trail in the White Mountains, at an elevation around 3,000 feet. Mountain ash is not a true ash (and therefore, spared the scourge of emerald ash borer), but is part of the rose family. Its clusters of bright red berries persist into winter, and although they’re bitter and can be toxic to humans, they’re a favorite food of birds and other wildlife. Like other rose species, mountain ash is susceptible to a number of diseases, including powdery mildew and fireblight, but is otherwise a great candidate for native plant gardens. We have often seen winter flocks of Bohemian waxwings and other birds feasting on its fruit.
What have you noticed in the woods this week? Submit a recent photo for possible inclusion in our monthly online Reader Photo Gallery.