Harvest’s End, More Fungi, and an Update

I even found a tiny overlooked melon hiding under the overgrowth!

(note: this entry was started on November 4th 2021, but was left unfinished for far too long!)

its now getting chilly here in zone 6a. they’ve already gotten some snow up in the hills. and the temps down here near the lake have been dancing close to freezing. but many flowers haven’t lost hope yet. One Datura inoxia is still blooming, and the morning glories are holding out for warm days still (not impossible in our climate!)

Datura is technically a tropical flower, but it does well here in zone 6a. if the seeds are well protected from frost, they will self-sow year after year.

the Nasturtiums are still going strong. the other day I pulled the last tomatoes, chiles, green beans and sour gherkins from the garden. But our hardy brassicas will continue to provide greens to us through the winter months.

a friend of mine recently purchased two AMAZING guides to fungi of the northeastern North America. One of which was a the Peterson Guide on the subject, which are always worth your time. George Barron’s Mushrooms of Northeaset North America was the other helpful volume. This tome specifically offers a photographic key of major clades of fungi in the beginning of the book. so if you have absolutely no idea where to start your search, this section will help speed things up.

After perusing which, I was able to come up with some better ID to the specimens shown in my last post. I will include some new photos of the subjects here:

ghostly spires of morning glory waiting for a little warmth. will their dreams come true?

White Cheese Polypore (Tyromyces chioneus)

those polypores I couldn’t identify in my last post appear to belong to this species. not all of the specimens I encountered were displaying guttation.