Botany Photo of the Day

A thanks to Mike Bush (former director of Lotusland) for sending along today's photograph in an email with the subject line “30mph stopper!”. Mike now has a weblog, BushBlog where he has written about this Fungus Amongus in Santa Barbara and then provides an update on its fate (hint: a dinner plate).

The eastern North American species of chicken-of-the-woods has previously been featured on BPotD, Laetiporus sulphureus. Prior to the start of this decade, conventional thought was that all Laetiporus in North America were one species, L. sulphureus. However, a closer look revealed that there were multiple species, and so Laetiporus sulphureus has been split up. In the case of today's fungus, Laetiporus gilbertsonii is to-the-eye indistinct from L. sulphureus. Grown in culture, however, it will not reproduce with the eastern North American L. sulphureus, making it biologically distinct. By some definitions, that is enough to classify it as a separate species.

In his weblog entry, Mike mentioned that this fungus was growing on a Eucalyptus. Knowing the substrate a fungus is growing on is often useful in identifying it, and that's the case here, as it helped eliminate the conifer-loving Laetiporus conifericola. For more on Laetiporus, visit Michael Kuo's page on Laetiporus sulphureus and relatives. The Fungi of California site provides additional information and more photographs: Laetiporus gilbertsonii.

Photography resource link: The Garden at Night: A Photographic Journey by photographer Linda Rutenberg. Linda visited 19 botanical gardens in the US and Canada and photographed them at night (and yes, UBC Botanical Garden is one of them!). I've found two newspaper articles about her project and book, if you'd like to read more: Moonlight transforms the ordinary into things of beauty via the Montreal Gazette and 'Lady of the Night' Rutenberg vividly captures world of darkness from the Montreal Chronicle. (PS: I've added the book to UBC BG's Amazon store (USA and elsewhere | Canada | UK) if you are interested in purchasing it. I'll be buying a copy.)

For those readers in California, I note that Linda is giving a night photography workshop in San Francisco and lectures at Descanso and Huntington gardens.