Lichens in the woods

 

A month ago today while walking in the woods in my hilly part of Austin I found some attractive lichens to photograph. The ones above were on a tree stump, the ones below on a slender dead branch. Only after I later looked at the second picture on my large computer monitor did I realize I’d failed to notice a spider whose colors and patterns made it resemble parts of the decaying wood.

 

 

  

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Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Our Planet Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms

 

Cast a net back 450 million years ago to the Ordovician Era, and you wouldn’t capture anything more than the ancestors of millipedes and worms.

However, you might notice 29-feet-tall (8m) trunks without branches or leaves, towering over a landscape of newly-evolved vascular plants.

These trunks, which have been found as fossils all over the world, are now strongly believed to be mushrooms—giant fungal towers that mean the kingdom of fungi produced the first giant land organism.

 

That’s the beginning of an interesting article in the Good News Network that you’re welcome to read in full. Other recent articles there include “Formerly Homeless Hero Stops Runaway Baby Stroller Moments Before it Rolls into Traffic,” “World’s Tallest ‘Hempcrete’ Building in South Africa Captures More Carbon than it Emits,” “Man Summits Highest Peaks of England, Scotland and Wales with Fridge on his Back For Mental Health,” and “Parrots Kept as Pets Were Taught to Video Call Each Other—and They Loved It.”

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman