Maine 2012 (Autumn fungi)

I've fallen behind in blogging, so will just pour this beauty onto the page in one big post.  Maine (or anywhere in New England, to be honest) in the fall just can't be beat.  I grew up there, and here's a picture of my homestead ... long before I was a resident there.  The house is some 150 years old.

Sullivan, Maine.

An autumn hike (Cyndi).

Autumn leaves, beech tree.

Blueberry fields in the fall.

Wave impact at Schoodic Point, Acadia National Park.

Northern Gannet.

Another treeline, this one at the edge of the salt spray zone, showing the pink granite bedrock of the Maine coast.

I'm tempted to say this is an angry ocean.  It was heaving and churning with a stiff breeze blowing cold spindrift onshore amid the clacking of cobbles and the explosive whoomp of the waves compressing air in the caverns at the edge of the sea.  But the ocean is dispassionate, and the seawater coursing through our bodies cares not for the external tempest we call life.

A herd of brown toadstools, showing off their gills.

A shelf fungus exudes moisture from its pores in the damp forest.

Squirrel.

A Hydnum type of fungus, I believe.

Lobster fungus, and though it may not be as tasty as the crustacean, I'm told it is edible ... but check this out carefully before you take my word for it.  I have not eaten one.  I am quite cautious about eating mushrooms, because one wrong identification can have disastrous consequences.  I do love to look at them, though!

Mushrooms and moss.

A yellow Hydnum type fungus.  I'm not a mycologist, but with this many non-vascular plants to be found ... if I lived in Maine, I think I would be!

If this was red, I would have called it "British Soldiers."  But it is pink, and I think it may be the fruiting bodies of a form of lichen.  This is a close-up, they're very tiny.

A colorful toadstool, perhaps in the Amanita family, a deadly poisonous one.

A pure white mushroom with wondrous translucency showcasing the gills.

Autumn color reflected in the ripples of an abandoned granite quarry now filled with water.

The brilliant varied color of Staghorn Sumac in the fall.