'Shrooms' II

Here has what has come in so far. These are all labeled as ‘could be’ which means for sure we are not so sure. I make no mention of whether they are edible. I wouldn’t be caught dead eating them. I just gaze at them in awe.

Lactarius indigo, commonly known as the indigo milk cap, indigo milky, the indigo lactarius, or the blue milk mushroom, is a species of agaric fungus in the family Russulaceae.

Hygrocybe coccinea, sometimes called the scarlet hood, scarlet waxcap or righteous red waxy cap, is a member of the mushroom genus Hygrocybe.

Flowery blewit (Lepista irina) is a species of fungus belonging to the family Tricholomataceae. Its other name is Clitocybe irina.

Calvatia fumosa (??)

Psathyrella piluliformis is a species of agaric fungus in the family Psathyrellaceae. It produces fruit bodies with broadly convex caps measuring 2–5 cm in diameter. The caps are chestnut to reddish brown, the color fading in age and with dry weather.

Fall Flowers 9-19-23

Here are some flowers still growing in my front garden just for enjoyment.

"Shrooms" 9-18-23

Well they are not flowers but they are growies - the fungi are out in force this fall.

I cannot name them but if YOU can please label them for me.

Cleome 9-15-23

I have been fascinated by cleome (Cleome houtteana) for over thirty years. It is also called spider flower, pink queen, and grandfather's whiskers. It is native to South America. It re-seeds yearly.

The intricate flowers have four petals and six long stamens. I have  a recurring urge to study this flower close up.

How did this delicate flower happen?

Rattle Snake Master 9-13-23

Rattle Snake Master (Eryngium yuccifolium) is a longtime favorite. It is  striking despite its dramatic name. It is in the carrot family and is native to Missouri's tall grass prairies. Here you can see it various stages of bloom.

Although the aggregation of many small flowers in dense, hemispherical heads makes rattlesnake master look like a thistle or other member of Compositae, it is unrelated to those plants. Instead, rattlesnake master is a member of the carrot family (Apiaceae or Umbelliferae). Break or crush a leaf, and the aroma will give it away. Rattlesnake master contains many of the same oils and other secondary compounds as parsley, carrot, and parsnip. The reproductive parts of rattlesnake master also indicate its relationship with carrots, particularly the paired schizocarp fruit.

Of course, the name "rattlesnake master" prompts all kinds of suggestions as to potential medical uses. The best documented use, made by John Adair during the 1700s, describes the use of the plant's sap as a preventative to snakebite, used during ceremonial handling of rattlesnakes. The sap and roots were also used to treat a wide variety of maladies, and as a diuretic. The Mesquakies used it in their ceremonial rattlesnake dance and used the roots to treat rattlesnake bites. The bristly flower heads are arranged like a pitchfork, suggesting a possible use as a snake stick to pin down the head of a rattlesnake. 

Rattlesnake Master, December

In semblance of brittleness it stands
still
unbowed, dry
reedy rod rising
to burry crown revealing nothing
even to breezes that demand
it speak forth its cadence of parched crackles

still it stands
confronting crisp winter
staring in its bleak eye the season
bent on bringing down lesser, larger limbs
unfit to bear the strain of snow

still rigid
unhostile in plain acceptance—
            this is being
            this is nothing more than being—
its implied dare
            reach, seize, snap
hints at the plunderer's fate
the bloodied hands
forced open in the attack

– Katy Scrogin

Indian Blanket Flower 8-30-23

Our Indian  Blanket Flowers (Gaillardia pulchella) have been blooming all summer. This image shows all the stages of development and maturity. They return each year.

They are also called Firewheel, Rosering, and Sundance.

 Old Haw 

 

Dear visitor,

 

How is it that you come to sound,

and wrap your lips around Sisyphus, or

sassafras sprouting wild beneath the door?

 

Water speaks commonly, yet,

we are seldom understood.

 

Adriana Ugarte

 

Plains Coreopsis 8-28-23

I love the plains  coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctures) for its bold color. It is a forb which is also

called golden tickseed and calliopsis.

It blooms, full of life

gentle breeze in the summer

Plains Coreopsis

Yury Tulchinsky

Verbena 8-25-23

Verbena (Verbena hostata) also called vervain grows well in my garden. It grows tall and singly. I love the way it sways in the wind. I just noticed that three of the blossoms in this image have detached themselves and two are essentially floating in the air.

Verbena has been a powerful agent. It's primary role was to 'protect believers against evil spells and purify sacred places, such as altars, ceremonial implements, temples, and private dwellings'. It has been doing this successfully in my garden for over 30 years.

vervain violet
fragrance waves of verbena
any hour invite

 R Byron Chambers (October 2022)                 

Rose of Sharon 8-23-23

A friend gave us this Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) over thirty years ago. 

This spectacular bush is made up of three different parts which produce different color flowers.

Late in the fall I cut it back so we can see out of the living room. Each spring it comes back amazingly. Unlike my azaleas it  requires very little attention. 

It is a rather famous old tree:

"I am the Rose of Sharon,  the lily of the valley.

Song of Solomon 2:1

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose."

Isaiah 35:1

Not to make anyone wrong but the Rose of Sharon is neither a rose nor a lily. It is actually an Hibiscus. Either way it is 'mighty purty'.

Larkspur 8-21-23

My larkspur (Delphinium) has been blooming for many months. Just when I think they have stopped blooming I see some more beautiful blue over somewhere else. The intense color is quieting.

Mercy Me said the womenfolk where I was raised, and in my mind mercy was a verb, the action reflexive. Though of course the wolf in the kingdom of winter does not mercy the elk. The owl does not mercy the hare that has trembled loose from its delicate coat of stillness. The word has been used since the twelfth century to mean God's forgiveness of his creatures' offenses. Such mercy is not what my father had in mind when he asked me to take a pistol to live in the wilderness. I didn't. That was not how I imagined my days, strapping its cold weight to my hip, a saunter to the river: Good morning larkspur, good morning death camas and moon-flower: I am more deadly than you. Would I slip it into the crook of the quince tree while I crouched to weed kale? And would I, after all, shoot a bear eclipsing my doorway? Would I shoot a man? Back home, another gun in the safe where my bedroom dresser used to stand. Out there, the news, a loaded gun, returns again and again to the loaded gun. Here the old growth murmurs at night, the dark's bones groan and creep. Once, barefoot in starlight the color of ginger root, trembling on the porch at the unknowable's cacophony, the dog in a huff,I wondered if the fear, in the end, would get me first. On the long, hawk-spangled drive east, all things appeared to me as bodies: the log haulers piled with the fallen forms of fir coming down from the mountains, chicken trucks with their live cargoes crushed into hunchback and the smashed daisies of feathers from which a dim red eye looks out. Across the frostbit flatlands of Idaho, gleaming silver trucks piled with fleshy potatoes: bodies, bodies, and on the radio a story about a body unearthed from high in the Andes, a woman's form arrayed with spear and ax-head, a big-game hunter. I want to summon a blessing on this vanishing year—but I forget how this works, what to say, in what order. I'm thinking of my good Aunt who for all those years and even after the chemo and the electro-shock therapy tucked her pale delicate chin at table and said with quavering but without irony, We give thanks. The moon's between the fir's ribs, up there in the god-dark black. The fox still moves in the roots and the rust. You could say and not lie that this is most of what I long for in the way of distance and the way of desire: may the fetters fall from all of us this year. May the wild light get way down in our bones. May we without requital, mercy one another with hands like wings, with unarmed hands. Corrie Williamson (2022) (Read it three times and it will cling to you.)