Hare’s Foot Inkcap and ... a Monarch
NOT JUST EPHEMERAL, BUT POSITIVELY EVANESCENT
Once again, our wood-chip garden paths have done their duty and a good crop of Hare’s Foot Inkcap fungi (Coprinopsis lagopus) surfaced overnight. These are somewhat delicate and short-lived fungi that I was going to call ephemeral before I read a description that used the word, “evanescent”. They are certainly that. The fruit bodies dissolve - deliquesce - into a black ink within a very few short hours of appearance. They are said to vaguely resemble the paw of a white rabbit and hence their common name though other than the colour I don’t really see it myself.
These are a fun experience to observe. Especially, I think, for children. Their above-ground appearance and existence is very short and so can be studied in its entirety well before supper.
Ephemeral - Lasting for a markedly brief time.
Evanescent - Liable to vanish or pass away like vapor
As the fruiting body matures over its short life, the shape of the cap becomes more conical or convex, before finally flattening out, as the edges curve upward. The veil turns from white to a silvery grey or grey-brown and finally splits, becoming hairy. The gills change from white to greyish-brown and then black as the spores mature in a few, short hours. By the end of the day, at maturity, the gill edges dissolve (deliquesce) into a black liquid. This process, autodigestion, is enhanced in humid environments so seek them out especially after overnight rain showers. This above ground phase of their life cycle is just a blink in time, for the rest of their existence they live invisibly in the soil as a gauzy network of filaments, busily doing the important job of decomposing plant life. It has been said that its fruiting bodies, like those of the other ink cap species, are “outrageously” exhibitionist.
The species is not poisonous. Whether this particular one is edible is unknown as it is really considered too small to be worthwhile though there are plenty of other ink caps that are extremely tasty, especially in omelettes for breakfast. Groups can appear from any moist soil but in my experience almost always where there are at least some wood chips. The other location to seek them is on compost heaps and cattle dung.
🐿 An hour after taking the photos above this entire patch had been cleaned out - something with a taste for mushrooms had nipped off and eaten all the caps leaving just a field of recumbent stalks.
Monarchs
Not much point writing an essay on Monarch Butterflies - everyone knows their story by now. However this is the time of the summer when they become more evident. Anyway, this fine specimen spent over two hours sipping from the flowers of out very tall Rudbeckia lacineata - clearly liked what had been found.. Worth sharing with you all.
A writer that I recently discovered wrote: “… the tyranny of usefulness, where the value of doing a thing has to be rationally quantified in advance in order to make it a socially acceptable endeavour. It’s an argument that hurls serendipity and spontaneity and all the subtle gifts of uncertainty right out the window - and it’s a curiosity killer.”
So thank you for reading to the bottom of this post and I apologize in advance if occasionally I am tempted to wander down a rabbit hole just to see what's in there. Curiosity.
** Next Thursday we may be discussing wildlife or gardening. I think. Perhaps. Always with a leavening of curiosity.