laineamb's Journal

I took a walk through the Pine Tree Preserve for about 30 minutes today looking for fungus. I had walked in this area before, but I had never realized how much fungus there was. It was difficult at first to find any fungi at all, but I found that they tended to appear in patches and a lot on broken branches or tree stumps. It was hard for me to identify all of the types of fungi, and some of them looked to be the same as each other. It was a pretty cold and windy day at about 50 degrees during the walk, and there were a few other people also on the trail. It was a shaded area so the wind was not too bad in the area of the preserve. I went off the trail in order to find the examples of fungi, and I again did not find many animals. It was peaceful and calming on my search, and it was fun whenever I found an example I needed. I only took photos of different examples of fungi that I found, although there was a lot more biodiversity present in the area. I found a variety of mushrooms in the grass and fungi growing on wood which are included in my observations. Overall it was an interesting experience and was a nice break from the rest of my day.

It was a nice and sunny 70 degree day on my walk. I went again to the Pine Tree Preserve on Boston College Campus to find some examples of the four main types of plants. It was shady and there were many brown pine tree needles all over the paths. There were also brown leaves all over the plants. It was difficult at first for me to differentiate which plant belonged to which group. There was a lot of diversity in the plants and they are definitely much more abundant than fungi. It was helpful to try and find plants of different types in order to understand their differences better. In class, we talked about how there is a lot of variety in plants and how they reproduce in different ways. It is interesting to see these plants in real life and the locations where they are most abundant, and how all of the types can coexist in the same ecosystem. I realized that there is a difference between lichen and moss, and the image that I took trying to find moss was actually lichen. There were probably examples of moss in the preserve, but I did not manage to get a photo. It is also interesting to think about how the huge trees create shadows below, resulting in different smaller plants being able to survive with limited sunlight.