my post – Page 5 – Kihaku-Gato's Garden Blog (tumblr import)

Almost got out of the woods at this point, but the wall of corn stopped that plan, leading to more photos as I struggled to get out of the woods (it would’ve taken longer to backtrack out of the woods)

@geopsych ID’d these fungi as Turkey Tails, and I have to agree; the turkey-tailfeather-like morphology is hard to ignore.

I would give a specific species/genus but it appears that Turkey Tails is sometimes a lumped name of a handful of shelf fungi of north america.

I’ll let MushroomExpert.com take it from here when it comes to this group and how to tell its similar mimics apart from each other. I personally do not have the patience to try to figure out the exact identity of these fungi in the photos.

IM SURE THESE ARE CHRISTMAS FERNS (Polystichum acrostichoides)! I have never see so many in the wild before. They were scattered all about the sparser part of the woods (not far from the Canadian Hemlock zone).

~~I took some fertile spore-frond bits, but I haven’t sown them yet so…. fuck. Will have to try again when I have more on-hand equipment for such a thing.~~

Some unfamiliar lacey ferns. I have no idea what kind. It was quite a big lacey fern indeed.

A patch of Taxus canadensis. An untrained eye would see them as young canadian hemlock, but a few berries here and there along with other details (such as the fact that Canadian Hemlock has silver undersides for its needles) reveals what it actually is.

Interestingly its said that its rarer in deer heavy locales? (supposedly in Miichigan in particular) Despite being super-toxic to livestock, deer apparently like to browse on it, especially in winter.

One of the uprooted/ing trees happened to be a towering canadian hemlock. It may only be still holding on thanks to some younger trees rooted together with it.

IT WAS BIG.

BABIES! There were so many sapling Canadian Hemlocks! This isn’t even half of them I’m sure.

~~Also if anyone suggests digging these slow-growing babies up I’m gonna slap them.~~

There were a LOT of Canadian Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis); old trees, young trees, one even uprooted but still holding on (will have a separate post for those two specific groups).

I’m sure there are at least 15+ specimens in that forest. I have never seen this many Canadian Hemlock trees in the wild before! All other specimens I’ve seen in the past have been either garden specimens (like in Cuddy Gardens) or were singular lonely specimens in the entire forest (that one swam forest walk a few years back).

It’s…. almost strange to think this tree is threatened by pests down south in the Appalachia.

I was very confused this fern especially when I discovered its identity (thanks to @geopsych); Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis).

I was not aware they could get SO BIG with such big fronds; some definitely almost reached waist high in height. ~~Also weird; I don’t seem to have any uploaded pics of the MASSIVE colony of them which I saw in that forest…~~

I think this is a musclewood/rionwood/blue beech (Carpinus caroliniana).

First one I’ve ever seen in the wild. Must be a decent age as it’s even taller than me! Shame there were no signs of fruit/seeds.