The Flowers of Fall

The simple pleasures of  August, 

 the new green leaves,

The rein orchids, 
found above the firs,
 in high oak meadows.

 Seaside cliffs show
 the pale green of maiden-hair ferns,

with crisp white lichen,
 next to brilliant patches 
of moss and sedum.

In the coastal forest,
a single delight, Moneses.

On sandy shorelines 
the migrants come
 to join the September harvest

This year a rain brings 
blossoming fungi,

brilliant and exotic 

in their floral beauty,

Sometimes strange in form,

brilliant in colour,

Some are choice for the palate,
others for the eye.

One twilight evening
in a frost-chilled forest,

a perfect silence descends

and leads me 

to a shelf of Oyster Mushrooms,

still perfectly frozen.

Now darkness emerges
from deep green forest lairs,
where
 in silence, 
keen eyes and ears

follow my path.

The wet season

This year,
 the dry of summer followed deep into fall,

the green and gold of harvest and late flowers held on

 

 

 

while the last of summer birds wait

 

and watch.

And then,

the dry creek's torrent

 

and the rains fall

bringing Pagan Earthstars

and Honey Mushrooms

that appear

under tiny Mycena perched on limbs.

Brilliant in the darkness, 

a Dyer's Polypore is a golden treasure.

 

A time of life and rebirth 

among the fungi and lichen.

Golden Girl

Her golden curls 

fall 

in soft spirals

over the meadow,

textures that grip my imagination

and tug at my heart

I see her form reclining

along the edge of fall leaves,

in the gold and red of the meadow.

She prepares a feast. 

A fascination of fungi, 
the beautiful,

the exotic

the elegant 
and the delicious.

Haunted

Her memory tugs

at my heart

like a trout not yet free.

 Even among

my favorite things,

I hear her voice

 among the ferns.

 

Surrounded by her

favorite green,

I am only then 

distracted

 from 

her memory. 

jsc 

October: "At This Time"

In the Sooke Hills the Licorice Fern, Polypodium glycyrrhiza is revived with the moist fall air. The fronds sprout from a horizontal root-like rhizome running under the moss. Take a segment of this rhizome on your tongue and you can taste the intense licorice flavour.
 

 A Yellow-Jacket Wasp nest hangs abandoned. Only the queen wasp overwinters and builds a new nest every spring. In the fall the colony dies off and the paper-like nest is abandoned.

 

Mushrooms are colouring the forest floor like the flowers of fall. Pushing up through the needles in the Douglas-fir and Shore Pine forest is the Coral Fungi (Ramaria Formosa). This one of the few corals that is not edible. (* I welcome well-documented corrections to my identification)

A striking blue polypore Hydnellum caeruleum appears among the green moss. Polypores have tooth-like gills on the underside of their caps. This genus of fungi produces pigments used to dye wool.

From above the brown wooly cap of the Boletus Mirabilis is well camouflaged against the forest floor.  Unlike the mushrooms you see in the supermarket, the spore-producing structures of boletes are pores (below) instead of gills.

 

The Chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius) is one of Vancouver Islands choice edibles. As long as you recognize its unique "blunt-ridged" gills (below) it is difficult to mistake it for anything else.

 

Off the side of the Mary Vine Creek trail I find the Fluted Black Helvella (Helvella lacunosa). Although edible, it is not recommended because it can easily be mistaken for other poisonous species.

 

Showing brilliantly white on the dark damp sides of a fallen tree trunk are Angel's Wings (Pleurocybella porrigens).

Passing Peden Lake, I am delighted to find beautiful blue buttons along the trail. I am often reluctant to disturb the mushrooms I see and spoil the treat for someone else passing by. Unfortunately many mushrooms cannot be readily identified without picking them and examining their structures. It may be one of the Cortinarius species, but I was unwilling to disturb its beauty.

These mushrooms stand like sculptures under a fir in Beacon Hill Park

Hiding below the green of leaves is a Red-legged Frog.

Our fall leaves sometimes display in more muted tones against the rushes in Matheson Lake.

Around the lake highlighting the forest with yellow and gold are the fall leaves of the BigLeaf Maple.