Käyttäjän achen29 päiväkirja

For this week's nature walk I decided to walk around the reservoir and the woods up and around it. It felt much colder than my last nature walk as the sun was not visible at all under all the clouds and there was some wind. I walked around the area for a lot longer than I planned to—about an hour and a half—because for a while I couldn't find any fungi. There were squirrels and a lot chipmunks dashing around quickly and squealing. I was walking all around the woods, on the path and off the path to try to find some fascinating fungi and perhaps other organisms as well, however it took me a while to find a variety of fungi. They were a bit hard to spot because the ground was covered with so many fallen leaves and sticks and dirt. The fungi easily blended into their surroundings so I had to deliberately look around for them. It made me think that the reason that these fungi are brown, white, and green is so maybe so they can camouflage into their environment to not get eaten. I didn't find any "free" standing fungi that were growing on the ground away from trees, all the fungi that I found were either directly on fallen trees or at the base of living trees. This could suggest many things. Perhaps the fungi grow best near trees or the fungi and trees are in some sort of symbiotic relationship between the fungi and the tree or tree roots. The fungi on the fallen, dead trees could suggest that the fungi may be aiding in the decomposition of the tree and/or the fungi are gaining nutrients from the tree that it no longer needs. It was fascinating that many of the fungi looked similar, however they were different species. Because the species have morphological similarities, it suggests that using the morphological species concept would not be best for classifying species as based on these traits alone they could be grouped together as one species. I looked up a bit of information about lichens and found it very interesting how lichens are the product of fungi and algae working together, resulting in an organism that is different from the two separate components. It made me wonder how different species of lichen are classified. Is it by the type of fungi and algae that make up each? The most fascinating thing that I found was the yellow mass growing on a tree trunk. Evidently, it caught my eye with its bright yellow color and size, and the fact that it was growing on the trunk at a level significantly higher than the ground. Inaturalist suggested that it was chicken of the woods, however I'm not sure if that is correct. I wonder why it is so big and colorful.

I went on my walk after getting out of two content heavy classes, so it was nice to be able to take some time to decompress on a nature walk. I decided to go to Newton campus and walk around Edmands Park, which is the woods area by Keyes. I walked around for about 40 minutes and it was cloudy and cool out. It had just rained the day before so the ground was still a bit moist and muddy, which was a bit of an inconvenience for me but on my walk I thought about how helpful and useful the water is for the plants ability to grow and also to disperse gametes for those which need water to do so. Speaking of water, bryophyta are most abundant in damp forests and lay low to the ground which was confirmed by the prevalent amounts of moss I saw on my walk. It makes sense that the moss grows on trees and rocks near the ground because it is moist and dark. It was fascinating to look at the different mosses up close and see the differences in morphologies. For example, the tree-skirt moss and haircap moss had distinct differences. I also noted that the leafs of many of the plants visually appeared to have a sort of coating, which I know is the cuticle, which helps creates a watertight teal to prevent water loss for land plants. It was interesting that some plants like wintergreens and fortune's spindle, which are both angiosperms, seemed to have thicker, waxer, shinier cuticle than others. The polypodiopsida or seedless vascular plants that I found were ferns. I tried looking for the sori, however I didn't see it on either of the ferns I found. The gymnosperms I found were pines and yews which are both conifers and it was interesting to see the difference in needles of the two. The pine had more thin, narrow, and "flexible" needles while the yew had thicker, darker, waxier and more structured needles/leafs. Angiosperms are noted to be flowering plants (as opposed to gymnosperms) however many of the angiosperms I saw and found did not have any visible flowers. This could be due to the season and temperatures right now. The wood asters and pokeweeds were the only ones that had flowers or fruits and I found these on the edges of the wooded area where there was more sun, which could be why the angiosperms further in the forest did not have flowers or had flowers that appeared to be dead/stripped away.