Anybody Seen My Focus?: Spring Is In The Air: Fort Yargo State Park, Section B To The Dam, June 12th (Part 1)

June 12th. When I visited Fort Yargo State Park in mid-February, there were few signs of Spring. The only wildflower plants that were obvious were the leaves of Cranefly Orchids (Tipularia discolor) that I found in many places.

The route… I’ve described it here, here, here, and here This walk doesn’t have the variety of wildflowers as my other walk from the Group A Shelter to the Old Fort but it does have some gems. One of the Smallflower (Asimina parviflora) had developed fruit that, unfortunately, it had lost; the Pink Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium acaule) Orchids had bloomed, and some Green Adder’s-mouth (Malaxis unifolia) Orchids were blooming. The occurrence of slime mold fruiting bodies added a new focus of interest for this walk.

Some of the Crown-tipped Coral fungus (Artomyces – formerly Clavicorona – pyxidatus) fruiting bodies were still present on a fallen log by the trail near the entrance to the main woods. Another fungal surprise were a…

small patch of Chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius) mushrooms had sprung up by the trail were it turned to follow the lake shore. During the previous week, I had heard a segment on the local NPR radio station that the chanterelles would be up in ten days. I wasn’t so sure but here they were…

Closer views of one of the mushrooms.

At the ‘Christmas Fern Grove.’ the Witch’s Butter (Tremella mesenterica) jelly fungus that was thriving the previous week was starting to dry up again.

I wanted to check the fallen log where I’d found the Red Raspberry (Tubifera ferruginosa) slime mold the previous week. I’d only found three small clusters of Chocolate Tube Slime (Stemonitis sp.) but I didn’t expect to find much because it had been sunny and dry for several days. But I was in for a surprise. I found that…

many more clusters of this slime mold had developed. These included some…

new clusters that were just starting to release their spores, and…

clusters that had shed most of their spores; all that was left were the stalks and the sporangia, the network structures that hold the spores.

Next to the Chocolate Tube slime sporangia were clusters of tiny fruiting bodies of yet another slime mold. I’ve read that these may be Black Pearl slime mold but I can’t find a scientific name associated with this common name. These black fruiting bodies are truly tiny; probably only 1 to 2 mm high compared with the Stemonitis sp. fruiting bodies which are about 1.25 cm (0.5 inches) high.