Saturday, March 28, 2009

Extreme Closeup


turkey tail fungus
Originally uploaded by P_Linehan.

This specimen of a turkey tail fungus was sitting on the top of an old stump. Something beautiful in the early spring!

Skunk Cabbage


During Friday's forest management lab I found this plant near one of the streams leading into the Waynesboro Reservoir. It turns out it is a skunk cabbage (thanks Beth for the id) just emerging from the soil. In the bottom photo I removed the leaves to show the flower. The plant has a strong odor that it uses to attract flies to pollinate. It was quite striking to see this purple bulb pushing out of the green moth! I will have to go back to get pictures of the mature plant later. Follow this link to the Wikipedia article on skunk cabbage.
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