Donate online to help support Botany Photo of the Day

Subscribe to BPotD

Type your email address below!

BPotD Around the World!

Locations of visitors to this page

Botany Photo of the Day
In science, beauty. In beauty, science. Daily.

Dacrymyces palmatus (tentative)

Dacrymyces palmatus

This photograph is a lesson on ensuring that you have adequate notes written to accompany your nature photographs if you plan on actually identifying the species. In this instance, I didn't, so I can only be tentative at best with the identification of the orange-coloured fungus on the fallen tree.

Assuming that the fallen tree is a conifer, then I think my identification is correct. On the other hand, if it is an alder (which I'm doubting because of the angle of the branches to the tree), it is perhaps Tremella mesenterica, which superficially resembles Dacrymyces palmatus, but differs quite a bit at the microscopic level. The inescapable fact, though, is this: to identify fungi, lichens and mosses, know thy substrate!

Read more about Dacrymyces palmatus and Tremella mesenterica on Mykoweb.

This is another photograph taken in MacMillan Provincial Park (Cathedral Grove) last October.

1 Comments

Mary Ann, in Toronto commented:

I absolutely love this type of environment -- mosses dripping from fallen trees. An eery, hobbit-like atmosphere! :o)

The link to MacMillan Provincial Park seems to be obsolete -- moved to here: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/macmillan/

(I'm having fun going back to the earliest BPotD pages.)

Leave a comment

Please share your comments about the photograph(s) and accompanying write-up. Telling a story about the subject of the photograph(s) is also much appreciated! If you have a gardening question, the best place to ask is on the UBC Botanical Garden Forums. Thank you!

" name="comments_form" id="comments-form" onsubmit="if (this.bakecookie.checked) rememberMe(this)">

« Previous entry: Akebia quinata | Main | Archives | Next entry: Tulipa bakeri »

a place of mind, The University of British Columbia

 
UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
6804 SW Marine Drive, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1Z4
Tel: 604.822.3928
Fax: 604.822.2016 Email: botg@interchange.ubc.ca

Emergency Procedures | Accessibility | Contact UBC | © Copyright The University of British Columbia