This is Moozle's nature notebook entry for this past week.
We made some spore prints: turn the cap upside down so its gills sit on top of some white paper; cover with a glass jar or dish to keep out any draught and leave for about 24 hours.
We were able to confirm the name of one specimen we were unsure of by observing the colour of its imprint.
If you wanted to keep these imprints, the paper should be covered very thinly with egg white or an adhesive gum to hold the spores fast. Moozle just observed and drew them this time.
The new discovery...a friend (thanks Anna M!) suggested this might be Dermocybe austroveneta.
Resources:
Handbook of Nature Study, First Studies in Plant Life in Australasia, a guide to our local area's flora & fauna and for young children, Mushrooms & Molds by Robert Froman (out of print) is a good 'Let's Read and Find Out Science Book,' with some hands on activities. There's a preview of it here.
The Wonderland of Nature by Nuri Mass has a good, basic section with some simple pen & ink drawings.
Online resources:
Fungimap & lichenised fungi
Australasian Mycological Society
Australian Fungi - Australian National Herbarium
An Australian Fungi Blog!
FungiOz
If you'd like a crime mystery with your fungi study, The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers centres around a fungi expert whose death was caused when he ingested a bowl of deadly mushrooms! This is the only mystery novel that I've read by Sayers where Lord Peter Wimsey is absent entirely. It's been a while since I've read it but it's probably best for around age 16 years and older.
10 comments:
Fungi are fascinating! I have always found them so. My own explorations have been limited to taking photographs and trying to identify the fungus afterward. You have pictures of some interesting samples here.
The plot of The Documents of the Case sounds very neat.
Your daughter's mushroom notes are really a work of art! I also didn't know about making mushroom prints; that is really cool. :)
Agree, what a work of art. Love all about this post, the fungi, the nature journal, the Sayers's novel mentioned (which I haven't read but now want to read!)
How beautiful--both the real fungi and the drawings. What a lovely study!
Nice work!
And how nice to have such great samples for your study. We had a difficult time finding fungi for our study in our desert.
Hi Brian, I was surprised at the different ways they can be identified.
Hi Marian, we were a bit slap dash with our prints so I'd like to try again & use an adhesive/mucilage & use put that in the notebooks as well.
Thanks Silvia. :)
Anne, it was a really interesting study & something I'd like to keep pursuing.
Thanks, Ruth. We are in a valley not too far from the east coast & the area is generally fairly lush. If you go a bit further west it's drier & we have our areas of desert as well. I read up a little on desert fungi on one of the websites I posted above.
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