What to See This Week

While mushrooms appear throughout the year, the late summer into fall is when they are found in the highest abundance. Pictured here is a particularly colorful bolete. Boletes are a group of mushrooms that have pores beneath the surface of their cap instead of gills. Boletes grow straight from the ground and are mycorrhizal, meaning they live in a symbiotic relationship with trees or plants around them and rely on those plants for their nutrients.

This next photo gives an example of why it is important to take into account all features in order to identify a mushroom. Pictured here is false turkey tail. False turkey tail has a lot of similarities to turkey tail fungus, but a big difference is the underside (seen on the left in the photo). False turkey tail is typically a shade of tan and generally smooth when fresh; it does not have any small pores. On the other hand, turkey tail starts pure white on the underside and has many tiny pores.

Milkcap mushrooms are also a fairly easy group to recognize. They grow from the ground and the upper surface of the mushroom cap has a deep indent, making them almost funnel shaped sometimes. The most telling feature is the milky latex that will exude from the gills and other parts of the mushroom when cut. 

One final fungus this week is one that can be seen even off the side of the road while driving! Chicken of the woods is a popular edible mushroom that grows fan-shaped on rotting logs. It has a bright orange upper surface and bright yellow underneath and is named for its textural similarity to chicken. It is a preferred beginner edible as it is hard to mistake for anything else.

Hickory nuts have begun to fall from the trees near the Log Cabin. Walnuts also produce a large, round, green-husked nut that has started dropping as well, but hickories can be recognized by the seams on the husk that split it into four parts. Hickory husks eventually dry out and split on their own, while walnut husks often rot off.

Goldenrod is blooming in some select areas, but within the next month or two it will become clear just how much this plant covers natural areas at The Arboretum. This is a good thing, too! Not only is it very common, but the genus feeds more species of caterpillar than any other herbaceous plant in Ohio. They are also important late-season food sources for bees and butterflies and their seeds help feed birds throughout the winter.

Just after the downpours this morning, this honeybee was seen hiding under a leaf! Typically bees are able to sense an incoming storm and get back to their hive but if not under a leaf is another good option to wait out the rain.

Pawpaws will not be ripe for about another month but there is still excitement in the pawpaw collection! This is a zebra swallowtail caterpillar, and still quite a small one but it is old enough to see its distinctive striped pattern. They feed only on pawpaw leaves and these leaves were covered in several much smaller caterpillars. Incredibly, some of these little caterpillars will form a chrysalis towards the end of August and then spend the entire winter in that chrysalis to emerge in the spring as an adult!