Check out the first picture. Is it chewing gum? Is it seagull poop? No, it's Aspicilia. This is a lichen that likes to grow on damp bricks, which our courtyard provides in abundance during the winter. Every Fall, I watch the colonies spread slowly and multiply, until the courtyard is sometimes home to hundreds of them.
We know that many lichens like to grow on trees, while others prefer rocks. But here we have one that seems to have adapted happily to suburban living, and doesn't even mind being walked on occasionally. The second picture is a close-up of a colony, showing the little nubs of fungal tissue containing algal cells.
Most of Canada, and even most of the eastern USA, is covered with snow this January. Here in Sidney we do get snow every year, but it comes and goes fairly quickly (sometimes melting by lunchtime). This tends to give the flowers a chance to brighten up our lives, even in midwinter. So on Jan 18th I went out and took a few pictures in Laurie's garden. The most conspicuous flower is the Hamamelis or witch hazel, whose vivid yellow, ribbon-like petals stand out brilliantly. Note that the Viburnum next to it is also opening. Nearby, down on the ground, the pure white of the snowdrops stands out, too. Further up the slope, a pink Rhododendron has been opening since November. These are among the many reasons why Mycologue & Co settled here in 1994.
I was happy to receive an order for several copies of The Fifth Kingdom from
MacDonald Campus of McGill University. But this meant that once I had packed the books I had to brave the weather and go to the Post Office in Sidney to mail them. Of course, Chelsea had to go with me, since cookies at the Post Office are among the highlights of her day. And once we'd left the Post Office, she insisted on a walk along the waterfront. Most days that wouldn't be a problem, but this day the rain was blowing horizontally at us, and the whitecaps were rolling in. This did not deter 15-year-old Chelsea in the least, as she shed rivulets of rain and headed very slowly for the pier, with me in tow. I was wearing a rain jacket and Wellington boots, but just ordinary trousers. Chelsea proceeded in a dignified manner along the promenade and out the long and exposed fishing pier, with no one else in sight, while I was soon dripping everywhere, as the rain ran down into my boots. Of course, she wanted to be dried off when we got home. Needless to say, I have no pictures of this episode, but it is indelibly engraved on my memory...
What we do for our dogs...
At this time of year it rains here, on and off - perhaps more on than off.
There's no point in taking a picture on a rainy day
unless you are a really superb photographer (I'm not).
But I have found one way of expressing the situation -
when all the rain comes together in our stream, then
turns into the little waterfall that
cascades down our 13-metre cliff onto the beach.
This gives you some impression of what's going on all around.
But it isn't cold... about 6-10 degrees Celsius,
and it doesn't often freeze at night.
However, we miss the sun.
I am, and have been for many years, infested with earworms.
Unlike ringworms and tapeworms, these are not organisms
making a living off my exterior or interior, but are actually ohrwurms:
the Germans coined the word for a tune or musical phrase that
gets into your mind and causes itself to be repeated ad nauseam.
Being a confirmed whistler, I even find myself whistling these beasts.
Well, actually, there's nothing wrong with them per se, but when they become embedded in the grey matter their endless repetition can be a nuisance to the afflicted and, in my case, to those around him. My most persistent and recurrent ohrwurm (hard to say, isn't it, especially if you attempt a proper German accent) is the final phrases from the Symphonie Singuliere
composed in 1845 by a not-very-well-known composer, Franz Berwald (it was his best composition).
That is frequently supplanted by other bits of music,
some of which return more often than others,
and often enough by something I've just heard
(horror of horrors, it can even be an advertising jingle)
However, most themes are classical,
since that's what I listen to the most,
and sometimes I have to think to come up with the name of the piece
or at least who composed it. The brain definitely plays tricks on us.
I'd be interested to know if anyone who reads this blog has the same 'problem',
and if they have figured out a way to get rid of it.
If so, please let me know...
though I have a funny feeling I'm stuck with them.
Perhaps I'll compile a list, with the relative persistence
or frequency of occurrence of each...
Bryce
Going back to considering the Melampsora rust fungus in the leaves of my poplar trees (Nov 28).
My rough calculations suggested that the tree had about 100,000 leaves.
I estimated that on average, each leaf had about 100 small areas of encysted teliospores
(though some have over 1,000, often contiguous and covering fairly large areas of leaf).
Now I have looked at sections through some of those small areas,
and suggest that each of them contains about 500 (resting) telial cells. Now for some real guesswork. I think that about 25% of the teleial cells may be eaten
by invertebrates during the winter, though they are heavily impregnated with a melanic substance, and may not be at all palatable. Each teliospore should give rise to a basidium, producing and discharging 4 basidiospores. So we can put together the following sequence.
100,000 (leaves) x 100 (telial areas) x 500 (telial cells) x 0.75 (some eaten) x 4 (basidiospores per cell) = 15,000,000,000 or 15 billion basidiospores. My calculations should not be off by more than one order of magnitude, so the number of basidiospores floating in the air next spring will be enough to ensure that the new leaves are well and truly infected. That's how the fungi work...
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