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Nov 6, 2009: Cypripedium montanum
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Nov 7, 2005: Verbascum eriophorum

April 20, 2005 : Dacrymyces palmatus (tentative)

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Keywords: Dacrymycetaceae | Witch's Butter

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.

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at April 20, 2005 12:00 AM

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Comments

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.)

Posted by: Mary Ann, in Toronto at March 17, 2009 9:04 PM

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!

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Botany Photo of the Day is a project of the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, located in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. UBC BGCPR is a department of the Faculty of Land and Food Systems within The University of British Columbia.