We’re going in.

I don’t have much time, but I have a bunch of pictures that are too fantastic not to get up here. So let’s dive in.

Here’s a shelf mushroom I haven’t seen before – it’s so green!

…and this is what the underside of it looks like.

 

A few feet away, a rock covered in lichen. Let’s pretend we’re exploring the surface of a newly-discovered planet:

Whoa.

 

Moss on a bit of bark. Here, I’m pretending I’m on Pandora

 

I’m pretty sure this is Canada mayflower – Mainthemum canadense. This is a very distinct early spring wildflower around here – usually just one, maybe two, leaves. It then gets completely obscured by bigger stuff, and I haven’t seen it for months and months. So to see this little guy was such a treat.

 

Once I spotted the first one, I spotted a whole bunch more. Funny how life works that way.

 

Here’s a fallen birch covered in shelf mushrooms. You can see which mushrooms got established when it was still upright, and which came in once it was lying down, because shelf mushrooms always orient themselves to be horizontal to the ground…

The fatty gray shrooms here came in first, and the smaller clam-shell type kind came in later.

I was just having too much fun here, bear with me…

 

And, last one, what I love about this is that it appears like the second kind of mushroom is feeding off the first kind of mushroom. *burp*

 

This! is a Solomon’s seal.

Yeah, they’re not looking so tasty right now, are they?

 

And this is the today’s cutest mushroom.

 

Some buds coming right up. Perhaps American basswood? I’ll have to look it up. No time right now, sorry.

 

Mmmm…gray birch catkins, I think.

 

I did mention that most of the foliage is long gone, right?

 

Except this one bit – probably aspen.

 

Back to mushrooms!

 

And more catkins!

 

In this case, a yellow birch.

 

Insert random beech shot here.

 

We’re not completely devoid of color. Thanks, mosses!