What to See This Week

One of the most commonly encountered species of fungus throughout the year is the violet-toothed polypore. This shelf fungus persists for a long time, often fading to completely white, but when it is found fresh it is hard to mistake for anything else due to the purple upper edge and underside. 

Slime molds are fascinating organisms. Not a plant, animal, or fungus, slime molds are a member of the kingdom Protista. Protista is a kingdom of life that consists of organisms that don’t quite fit anywhere else including things like algae and amoeba. During the pictured stage, this type of slime mold consists of one giant cell containing many nuclei.

Sometimes tree bark can work as an entire mini habitat on its own. The bark of this tree is not only home to many lichens and mosses, but with the soggy weather tiny mushrooms have even been able to pop up from the furrows of the bark. 

Look carefully for crowned slug caterpillars this time of year but definitely don’t touch them! Unlike other caterpillars, slug caterpillars have modified prolegs that leave them with one large “foot” that allow them to glide along a surface. A lot of slug caterpillars sting like the notorious saddleback caterpillar. The crowned slug caterpillar pictured here have stinging hairs all along the edge of their body. This one was only a little over half an inch and easy to overlook.

Wet weather makes it easier to spot salamanders. Pictured here is a long-tailed salamander, an eye-catching member of the lungless salamander family. Lungless salamanders, as the name suggests, really do not have lungs as adults. Instead, they absorb oxygen through their skin as well as specialized tissues in their mouths. It is incredibly important that lungless salamanders’ skin remains moist as that is required to absorb oxygen through it!

Bittersweet is often used in fall decorations due to the shades of orange and red in the fruits. There is a good chance that the majority of bittersweet you may find in the wild will be the invasive Oriental bittersweet. Pictured here is our native species of American bittersweet. American bittersweet has fruits all in clusters at the end of branches while Oriental bittersweet has fruits that grow scattered along the stem. Unfortunately, the two species can hybridize making identification difficult.

Southern magnolia is striking for many reasons. The large, white flowers in the early summer and the shiny, thick evergreen leaves help it stand out amongst other trees growing at The Arboretum. Currently, the pods are a bright red color. Eventually they will split open revealing bright red seeds that attract a variety of birds.

Have you visited the bonsai collection yet this year? These ginkgo leaves starting to shift to yellow actually belong to one of our ginkgo bonsai at the Visitors Center. A few other bonsai are beginning to show some signs of fall color as well. Be sure to check out the collection before they are taken in the next few weeks to be stored for the winter.