Photos: Suzanne’s Mom.
After an unexpected visit from mushroom hunters in September, I’ve started paying attention to what pops up after rain. It’s not that I want to eat wild mushrooms, but I would like to know something about them. Their names for example. I do know the one above. It used to be called Indian pipe, but nowadays, it’s called Ghost pipe, a name that works for me. [Late note: See naturalist Kim Gaffett’s helpful corrections in the comments below.]
Just from noticing a little more, I’ve realized that the round yellow ones with the white dots flatten out after a few days. I haven’t decided if I want to pay for the mushroom-identifier app, so if you’re a micologist, maybe you could tell me the little guy’s name.
From my walks in Massachusetts: there’s a black squirrel who lives along the bike path, unusual around here. Kathleen’s garden box features a gigantic aster practically dancing with buzzing pollinators. Pat’s garden box has late-blooming dahlias. The milkweed announces fall.
From my walks in Rhode Island: New Shoreham’s West Side beaches are quiet in the evening. One view shows the goldenrod that covers the island at this time of year. The tiny frog is, I think, a peeper, normally seen in spring. The shark on the rock celebrates a big anniversary for a famous movie that gave white sharks a bad name. The cloud photo shows the sea at its most benign. The one after that shows its dark side, a tombstone for fishermen whose bodies will never be found.
From where I live now: artwork that includes a metal fish by Cassie Doyon and Muppet-like shapes by Joan Mullen. Finally, an early morning view of the Sudbury River from our fitness center.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Hi from Block Island. A few comments: the ghost pipe is an amazing plant (not fungi) that gets its nutrients and energy from nearby trees (maybe plants sometimes) transported via fungi mycellium. I believe the orange mushroom with white dots is a type of Amanita fungi – often very toxic. And lastly, I think that is a gray tree frog.
Enjoy each day. Peace, Kim
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Yay, Kim! You’re the best! The Nature Conservancy is lucky to have you!
Thanks for this lovely gallery of photos. You have your own grasshopper photo. : )
Our Place has an arrangement with a local gallery for periodic painting or sculpture exhibits. Some are quite fun.
We enjoy edible mushrooms, if we can buy them on the market. We’re not mycologist so for what it’s worth: the yellow mushroom made us think of the fly agaric or fly amanita. We searched for ‘yellow fly amanita’ and found Amanita Muscaria Variation Guessowii. More about this one on Alan Bergo’s blog https://foragerchef.com/amanita-muscariafly-agaric/. (PS don’t be tempted to eat them!)
Thank you so much. I clicked on that, but we do not have a red one so if it’s an Amanita here, it’s a different kind.
On second thought, ours do look like Amanita muscaria guessowii. Thank you!
To quote wikipedia: “it is found often in the fall but sometimes in the spring, common in the northeast, from eastern Canada to North Carolina, northwest Florida, and west to Michigan”
Thank you!
Wonderful selection of photos! I think “Ghost Pipe” is a much better name. It does, after all, look ghostly.
I was interested to learn it is not a fungus itself but aided by a fungus.