We had a pair of logs that Mark Bower introduced me to where Oyster Mushrooms would bloom after a rain. After a nice fall shower two years ago, I trekked up the little wet-weather creek filled with anticipation and found a large blossoming of mushrooms. Cutting them off, one fell over the edge of the log and I reached down to retrieve it, stopping just short. A very patient copperhead waited without moving while I grabbed my camera for a shot of a lifetime.
Mark Bower and I came across nostoc along the rocky glade trail Saturday. The barren rocks look like they couldn't support any life but add a little rain (in this case just a sprinkle) and in the words of Bill Bryson in A Short History of Nearly Everything, “Life just wants to be; but it doesn't want to be much.”
As we discussed in a earlier blog, this cyanobacteria produces a rather disgusting mass, looking like a rotting plant on its way out rather than a new growth.
Another example of overnight greening after a rain will be featured in the next blog.