zitserm's Favorites

The belly of this small tadpole was a metallic bronze color and shimmered in the sun light. In a fresh water pond. Spring peepers and Wood frogs are both present in this pond. So are Bull frogs and Fowler's toads.

A tiny sapling that seems afflicted with some rust fungus. The young stem is pubescent. I scratched the twigs and they didn’t yet have the sweet wintergreen smell, so perhaps that’s not always detectable in saplings?

4/24/2024 Cunningham Park, Queens, NY

Light gray/tan bark, somewhat warty due to the numerous lenticels. Opposite branching. Growing near a vernal pool. I am eager to see the leaves on this small tree. The only thing that comes to mind is Fraxinus ornus?? I believe F. ornus has angular twigs as seen here, but I'm not sure.

This fungus infects Box elder (Acer negundo) and turns the twigs white, killing them. Sometimes the fungus looks like broken up black circles (see photo 1), a bit like cheetah spots, and sometimes it looks like complete circles. I have seen similar Box elder twigs with this fungus, where part of the pale twig was an orangish pink hue.

After letting the twig sit in a moisture chamber, pinkish goo started to ooze out of the black circles. I believe this is an anamorph of some Ascomycete. A photo of the conidia at 1000x is shown. The spores are elliptical / pill shaped and have numerous round guttules in them.

Previous observations:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/200536858
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/196420044
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/194669917
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/157445322
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/151691625
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/151691465
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148312162
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/144672964
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/110823238
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/110170481

The scrapings are probably created by a snail scraping its radula. Interesting texture on this black pyrenomycete. The close-ups are from a dead Sycamore maple. One of the larger Sycamore maples, shown in the last photo, appeared to be covered with sooty mold, so perhaps it's also infected by the fungus.

Pits in Lindera benzoin trunk. This is a very common condition in New York City. Concentric scarring is visible within the pits. Perhaps these are caused by Neonectria ditissima, which is known to cause "target cankers" (Apple canker) on a large number of hosts. In Alley Pond Park, I see large cankers caused by N. ditissima on Betula lenta.

For the plant, see:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/204950708

Near a saltwater creek, in sand. Lots of grasses, mugwort, wild bergamot around, evening primrose and young black locusts.

Globose spores that appear warted / ornamented

Marine Park, Brooklyn 3/30/2024

A very unusual puffball-like mushroom, except unlike puffballs, this mushroom had a stalk. Growing in dry sand, by the shore of a salt water creek. The last two photos show the habitat.

https://www.first-nature.com/fungi/tulostoma-brumale.php#:~:text=Tulostoma%20brumale%2C%20the%20most%20common,almost%20other%2Dworldly%20little%20fungi.

Some sort of orange eggs in elongated clusters, attached to moss (Leptodictyum riparium) on a branch that was completely submerged under water, in a vernal pool. There was a sizable slimy mass containing eggs (photos 1-3), but many of the egg strands were attached to moss leaves without too much of the slime.

I found similar eggs on Carex leaves:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/203265051

For the moss see:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/204272429