Käyttäjän jillian_evans päiväkirja

Today was a chilly day and very cloudy, but my walk was extremely enjoyable. I went in the early afternoon, and the Houghton Garden was quiet and cozy with all of the trees and growth around me. The area was not densely wooded, so I spent most of my time off the path just wandering through the garden. Even though I was specifically looking for fungi, I saw so many different kinds of plants and other organisms. I saw a lot of fungi and lichen which did not surprise me too much. Fungi thrive in environments with dead matter because they can decompose it; with it being fall, there are tons of leaves on the ground, providing a perfect source of matter for fungi to decompose. I can imagine the soil in the garden is extremely rich in organic matter because of all of the organisms living there, so fungi must thrive in that sort of environment. The fungi that I saw was always surrounded by other plants and organisms, which made me think about the important relationships between different species. This is a key aspect of biodiversity; the fungi rely on other organisms and those organisms rely on fungi in order to establish a successful ecosystem.

I walked around Webster Park this afternoon. It was a beautiful, cool fall day. The area I walked around was pretty wooded, and there was not really a trail to follow, so I just explored. Because of the theme of this walk, I paid much closer attention to the plants on this walk than on my previous walks. I noticed that there were so many different kinds of plants often growing in extremely close proximity to one another. I also noticed that the plants seemed to adapt to the environments around them. For example, I saw many plants growing around fallen trees and growing vertically toward the sun on steep hills. I also noticed that underneath some rocky cliffs with lots of shade, there seemed to be different plants growing than in some of the sunnier areas of the woods. I really enjoyed this walk and will definitely be returning to Webster Park in the future.