@mycoblogg we recently got some rain and I found these cute yellow mushrooms growing in the yard by the base of a mountain laurel. Immediately ran to get my phone and kneel in the dirt taking pictures so I could ask you if you recognized them lol

Last week in Florence I met an artist selling watercolors who painted me a sketch of a pigeon in about 20 seconds, leaving me delighted for the whole day… so on the train today I drew these two in colored pencil in hopes of returning the favor of spontaneous pigeon art. Hopefully I can find him again today.

Sunlight on raindrops making fairy sparkles outside my window

Hohoho what is this? You might wonder. A plant, but no leaves? Yes! This is a coralroot orchid that I discovered in The Woods. They are fascinating little guys. Instead of doing all the heavy lifting of photosynthesis like any self-respecting member of the Plantae Kingdom, these freeloaders plug into the local mycorrhizal network and leech off the hardworking fungi and their photosynthetic partners. By stealing its nutrientes from photosynthetic plants like trees that are also plugged into these networks, the coralroot is able to grow in shady forest floors where most other wildflowers can’t survive. What’s more, it doesn’t need to put all that energy into growing leaves to produce its own nutrients or structures to hold those leaves up, so it only emerges from the ground briefly to flower and spread it seeds, spending the vast majority of the year chilling beneath the soil in rhizome form. In this way, it’s behavior is more like a fungus than a plant! This one is likely Corallorhiza maculata or Corallorhiza mertensiana. Definitely a Very Good plant.