Big kitty tracks going my way. I never see cougars but often see their tracks..
Oh my,what a nice surprise, the first bear I have seen in four years. This was a big one too.
I found this in my petri dish. It was mixed in with a Pellia. I can't get it to genus.
The width of the entire plant is just 2.5mm.
It appears to have a short double costa.
Picture is at 40 times magnification under my compound scope.
The leaves have very long linear cells. I could not mount a whole leaf as the plant was very fragile and I have cheap forceps.
Margin is serrate at the apex.
I ruled out fisidens to the the cell shape.
I don't know what a "slime filament" looks like so I had to use a Key other than the Madrono Doyle and Stotler key. I really wish I had a better key for this area.
I used my British field guide to ID this as endiviifolia based on the teeth on the perianth mouth. The guide even had a drawing of teeth on a perianth mouth to make it simple.
When I colleced this I noticed that it seemed more frilly than P. neesiana and I thought it might be a different species or even genus.
The second picture shows elators and spores.
I was not looking for them, but there they were. Funny how one develops and eye for such things.
It has two corona so I think I can safely put it in the Bdelloidea order of rotifers
Is there a season on these things? Suddenly every slide that I mount has rotifers in it. I think they are coming from the tap water that I use. Maybe this is why we used distilled water in the lab?
Some were not moving but stuff inside them was moving so they might be alive. Others were very much alive and very difficult to take pictures of.
this was growing on the lower bark of a Douglas-fir on a steep SE facing slope.
Pleased to be able to key this out so confidently. Still it took at least an hour and two different keys plus a glossary. This moss was on our test and it is one that I got wrong. This is the first time I have ever seen it other than on the test.
Leaves around seta were much longer. Seta is rough, capsule is 2x1.
leaves 1x.5mm. Cells mostly round and unipapilose, margin serrate. Marginal cells not papilose. Leaves catenulate when dry.
We thought this huge polytrichum with 12mm long leaves and 10cm long stems might be P. commune but a cross section revealed no "C" shaped cells. Further investigation has pointed towards P. formosum. The lamellae are in about 30 rows and are 4-5 cells high. The cells of the margin (the teeth) extend 3 rows out from the lammelae. The cells in the teeth are about 8um wide.
This was growing in a very moist shady area. There were sporophytes present and I really wish I had collected one to see if it was sulcate.. but there were so few sporophytes that it did not feel right to collect them.
Found this silk ball of baby spiders on my evergreen shrub. This picture is at 40 times magnification. I put the whole ball up on my dissecting scope. Later I returned the ball of spiders to their tree. No spiders were harmed.
I think this is Marchantia polymorpha but the thallus is larger and the antheridiophores are smaller than the only other ones I have ever seen. Also I did not see any gemmea cups and I looked for them on several plants.
Ok now I think the other Marchantia that I found in town is subspecies ruderalis and this one here by the river is subspecies polymorpha.
The ones at sea level are blossoming but this one at about 1,200 feet has not opened yet.
I think this is green algae but it could be blue green cyanobacteria. What ever it is, it's interesting to see.
A fern. We so many different kinds of ferns in the Olympics.
On the lower big Quilcene river trail
Forming seeds on the lower big Quilcene River trail.
This is one we had to memorize for class. It was growing near the Big Quilcene river. The globose sporophytes make it easy to ID. But I checked with a microscope too.
This Basidomycete was growing next to the Lower Big Quilcene River Trail.
It looks to have a vulva and for sure has a veil remnant. I did not look at the gills, kinda burned out on mushroom ID at the moment..
Open flowers on the Lower Big Quilcene River trail.
On the lower big Quilcene trail. I love the latin name.
Growing next to the Lower Big Quilcene trail on this dry overcast day.
This was under my boot when I stepped back after looking at some moss. It seemed ok. Is it a baby rough skinned newt?
I think these are arbor vitae cypress. What ever they are, they did not like the ice storm. They are all still a bit bent over. I hope they straighten up.
We called this shrub Jabba the Hut because before it caught on fire it was shaped a bit like Jabba the Hut.
Yesterday I had a friend beheaded the monster for me. The top was black and horrible. Now the top is flat and brown and horrible. I hope it greens up someday.
I am very allergic to this bush. When I contact it with my inner arms I get a rash and welts that form about 30 mintues after contact.
Lots of pretty flowers this year. I guess the ice storms did not harm these trees at all.
The racemes are up to 9cm long; maybe they will get longer later in the season.
I read that most garden varieties of this are watereri, so I went with that.
OK I mounted the leaves 3 times now and the third time I cut them so they would lay flat and now I see that it does have a costa.. a very fat costa that takes up all of the leaf tip. That explains the three D look of the tip.
In the prairie in an area that was burned in 2009.
It has tiny stems about 5-6mm tall with tiny green leaves. The leaves are pointy and I don't seem to have a costa but I might see alar cells.
Cells 10-40x5 um some possible alar cells were 60x10 um. The leaves were 1-2mm X .5-.10mm.
Does not appear to have a costa.
Some cells are rectangular 20x5 and some are linear 40x5. Cells near the margin are more rectangular. The entire margin is serrate from top to bottom.
It looks like it is bearing lots of round blobs of multi-cellular gemmea from the top surface of the leaves.
Spit bug found living on clever. Under the microcope. It's safe and back outdoors now.
These pretty flowers were growing next the North Fork Skokomish river trail about one mile from the ranger station.
I am guessin that they are some sort of orchid but I'm really not sure.
