Of Mice and Mushrooms

The Appalachian mountains are a hotspot for salamander diversity, but the fungal diversity is quite impressive as well. The habitats for both types of organisms have quite a bit of overlap, mostly in moisture preferences. As a consequence of that, I get to see a wide variety of mushrooms when conducting my own fieldwork. Although I did not take pictures of everything, within the past two weeks the diversity seemed especially pronounced.

      

Late summer is wildflower season in the mountains. Coming from Texas where this time of year you are lucky if everything is not completely brown, wildflowers in bloom is a refreshing change. I was surprised by the overlap of wildflowers between the mountains and central Texas (though not all are the same). Just the timing is different.

Yarrow

Queen Anne's Lace

Butterflyweed

Carolina Phlox

Crimson Bee Balm

Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan with unusual coloration

Not sure about this one, but mint family

Turk's Cap Lily

Sundrops (love this name!)

Blackberries!

One flower I have never seen in Texas, however, is called Pinesap (Monotropa hypopitys). It looks a lot like the Indian pipe flowers I posted before, however it has multiple flowers per stem and was more yellow. Pinesap is currently in the same genus as the Indian Pipe, but this classification is contested by genetic evidence.

A blog post written by me would not be complete without some pictures of cute salamanders!

In a tree :)

Huge salamander (with others for comparison)

Big salamander :)

Black-bellied salamander

Teeny-tiny Ocoee salamander

Another teeny-tiny Ocoee salamander

Couple of stream-side salamanders

 

Other fun things I have encountered over the past two weeks include: 

These really cute mice hoping all over the place. They had ridiculously long tails. 

This GORGEOUS moth:

Polyphemus Moth

A brook trout:
I have never seen one and had no idea they were so pretty. We were doing some stream sampling, and I put my net down, picked up a couple rocks and noticed something huge (relatively speaking) go into the net. I was a bit surprised to find a fish!

One day we found a toad:

Another day we saw 2 small garter snakes (I only got a picture of one):

The sites where we do stream sampling have incredible dense rhododendron. At one point I was trying to get from the stream back up to the path. I started to follow an opening in the canopy, which turned out to be a fallen Hemlock tree. after a while I just ended up slightly stranded on top of the rhododendron.... I had to back track and walk a little ways before I could fight my way up the hill.

Looking down, behind me on the fallen tree

I also found a couple of neat looking twigs and branches:

Looks like a tiny sword!

Looks like an arm bone with some flesh near the top to me... 

On Friday morning, I walked out of the field station and saw a bear wander into the woods not 100 yards from where I was standing. I was not quick enough to snap a picture, but it was a pretty neat experience!