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Mushrooms

Poster courtesy of the North American Mycological Association

I don’t know what it is about fungi, but it’s creepy.  It fits into it’s own kingdom, neither plant nor animal, and that makes it plain weird.  Plants too have widely varying degrees of toxicity, so why are mushrooms so terrifying?  They strike some odd form of primal fear, evidenced by the fact that there are multiple X-Files episodes wherein the ultimate “villain” turns out to be an unknown fungus.  Personally, I think I was scarred by my trenchfoot experience.  If you’ve ever had parts of your skin rot and fall off, then break out in these circular fungal formations which turn into holes several millimeters deep into your dermis, then you know what I’m talking about.  Do not Google trenchfoot.

But their allure has captivated my daughter, who likes to point out any mushrooms that appear in our yard.  There must have been a lot of trees on the lot once, because every time it rains, we get these odd paths of toadstools that pop up, presumably along old roots.

So I, iPhone in hand, and Wikipedia at the ready, decided to record and catalog them:

Mycena inclinata

Wikipedia advised that this species is “doubtfully edible”, which doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence–not that I’d base the decision to eat a mushroom off of Internet knowledge anyway.  So many seem to have amatoxin, which leads to renal failure.  I’ll pass.  I told my daughter to wash her hands.

Next on the list is what I think is an Amanita bisporigera.  It looks like something in the Amanita genus anyway.  It was kind of hard to get a definitive identification from pictures.  Still, more amatoxin, somewhat implied by the fungus’ common name: Destroying Angel.  Subtle.

Amanita bisporigera
Amanita bisporigera underside–I keep telling her not to pick them
Why is deadly always pretty?

I still have some nightshade in the gardens, despite my weeding campaign.  I dunno if it’s the deadly nightshade, but it does concern me a little.  So I have natural sources of amatoxin, atropine, hyoscine, and hyoscamine apparently.  Of course, I also have lye, gasoline, antifreeze, bleach, insecticide, and even tea tree oil around the house.  Being a parent can be a little scary at times.

This next one was hard, but I’m going with Pleurotus ostreatus, although it looks like a polypore too, so I’m probably wrong.

Pleurotus ostreatus?

This one is supposedly edible, but I’m not confident with the identification.

The last one was very easy to identify though, Trametes versicolor.  It’s not only edible, but apparently medicinal as well.

Trametes versicolor

So there you go–a biology post for my family.  I am not, as they seem to suspect, completely disengaged from the natural word.  Especially since everything around us seems to be waiting to kill my progeny.

–Simon

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Summer Days

As an addendum to Summertime Magic, here is a mini post.  I admit, the day was so hot that I considered joining her, but my neighbors are somewhat conservative, and they have a couple teenage daughters, so it might not be appropriate for me to run through a sprinkler shirtless.

Although, Liz keeps asking me why I don’t mow the lawn shirtless too.  Maybe I just can’t escape some of my Lubbock conditioning, or am too old.  I do see a lot of old men mowing the lawn in slacks and sweater-vests; I guess that’s my future.  Anyway, I digress–here’s a child’s joy:

Multitasking

–Simon

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Summertime Magic

With the first year of school comes the first official summer break.  And that means that I get to watch a little girl’s first experiences with the wonders that the magic of summer break have to offer…with some minor guidance of course.  Captured below are two of these such moments.

She asked me to get her a drink.  I was busy, so I suggested the novel idea of drinking directly from the hose.  She stared at me blankly, considering that proposal.  It had never occurred to her before that she could do that.  Eventually, she decided that sounded fun, and off she ran.  I found her in the front yard with the hose.  Her eyes were bright with glee as she held the hose to her face, cute little nose crinkled as the inefficiency of hose-drinking drenched everything in the area.

Every kid enjoys being a know-it-all, especially to authority figures.  At one point, someone had taught her that she could eat clover flowers, which has become a regular activity to taunt her teachers–guardians who are necessarily concerned with their charges eating wild plants.  Now, with the herb garden installed, a banquet of edible plants sits in the yard, begging for a child’s destructive attention.  So after she freed the remaining fishing worms into the herb garden, decided to sample the cuisine.  Admittedly, it was fun to teach her about the different plants and let her build culinary associations.  I’d have her taste a leaf first, then ask if she could identify it.  She was pretty accurate with the more obvious ones, correctly identifying chives, mint, and basil.  She’s not a mint fan, but loved the chives.  Forestry merit badge earned.

–Simon

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Micro-Bouquet

While I would never admit this to Liz, I too enjoy the aesthetics of arranged flowers.  Where we differ, however, is that I generally don’t feel the price point of these arrangements to be worth their cost, nor do I consider purchasing them to be a full experience.  But, it is possible to make one’s own floral decorations, and since this represents a project—I like projects–I dabble in this art form.

Back in the Lubbock years, mom would take us down the road to a vacant lot.  This being upon the Great Plains, the lot had gradually morphed into reclaimed prairie.  The inevitable spring storms would then turn this into an urban landscape of wildflowers.  We would each pick a bouquet, then walk home and place them in vases.  It was an afternoon activity of cheap entertainment, until the city eventually paved the lot.

At the time, I found it a little out of character for a boy to be immersed in flowers, but I had only sisters, so the options were generally to play alone or join in with more effeminate activities (although I still instigated the occasional Nerf fight).  And play alone a lot I did, but there’s only so much a kid can do alone before needing company.  So while Texas schooling tried their best to beat me into a tough, football-loving macho asshole, I was forced to embrace aspects of my feminine side.  This was also at the end of the super-angry 80s feminist period–the period that gave us a decade of sitcoms featuring incompetent family-men, and represented a brief period in which I was taught that as a boy it was okay to show emotion.  I say brief because once I tried dating, girls were decidedly not interested in a boy who talked about and showed his feelings.  Can you say double-standard?

Just search through Pinterest

But a consequence of this confused upbringing is that I can easily embrace a cultural shift in masculine ideals.  Gardening?  Bah!  Sissy nonsense.  Cooking?  Tailoring?  Domestic woman’s work.  Not so much anymore.  Even the most obstinate of minds still has to accept the pendulum is swinging back.  And such is the case with something as simple as flowers.

I note of growing popularity are the Asian floral arts.  They will spend hours deciding where to place a single flower.  And like all things Asian/European, Americans are quick to assimilate the culture as chic.  Hence, floral arrangements are no longer effeminate.

With that over-analysis, I can move on with my anecdote.  In the townhouse, there wasn’t a lot of room to grow flowers, and any garden space I did have was reserved for tomatoes.  Therefore, I started making what I call “micro-bouquets”, or simply “whatever I could fit into a shot glass”.  Simplicity became the governing principle, and the small size necessitated creativity over substance.

Today, I still like to apply this philosophy to floral arrangements.  I find a small bouquet to be less gouache and more elegant, less taxing on my garden’s resources, and more difficult to pull off:

Intellectual reflection aside.  My daughter really likes them.  And if making my daughter happy isn’t manly, then I fail to understand anything about our current society.

–Simon