daveg220's Journal

I took a nature walk on a trail in my town in Connecticut. The trail is not near any major roads and doesn't see too much traffic, but it is by no means remote. I went in the evening and the weather was very nice. It was around 65 degrees and sunny (although the sun was behind a thick layer of smoke). While the smoke was noticeable, it did not seem as bad in the woods. I saw a lot of biodiversity on my trip, and noticed many types of fungi and other plants. To be honest, I have no idea what a lot of the things I captured as observations actually are. I'm fairly confident that at least six or seven of them are fungi, and a few are not. One thing I noticed that particularly stood out to me was that almost all of the fungi I observed were attached to trees. This symbiotic relationship leads me to believe that they are Glomeromycota. Some of these Glomeromycota were attached to trees that had been chopped down. I found this very interesting and led me to question how the fungi could stay alive when the tree was not. I also noticed on two occasions that one side of a tree was completely covered in a fungi, and the other side had absolutely none.. The first tree I noticed this on was near a clearing, and the side facing the clearing had the fungi. I thought that this pointed to the fungi being a phototroph. However, I came across another tree nowhere near a clearing that had the same pattern of fungi distribution. It appears that the fungi was growing in the same cardinal direction, but I'm not sure why. Overall I enjoyed the walk. At first I felt like it was the last thing I wanted to do after working a nine hour day, but it was a nice, relaxing way to finish out my day.