In November, Auntie Margaret came to visit me. In the course of visiting me she also visited my Mommy, Daddy, and Erica. She really wanted to go see the Big Trees, so we did. This time we went to Simpson Reed Grove which we hadn’t gone to before. Auntie M really wanted to go hiking in the trees, so we did. This blog post is a brief chronicle of the bizarre flora that we discovered along the trail.
This first picture is of some sort of mushroom. I was told not to eat it or even touch it as it might produce a fate worse than death. I called this one Blobster.
It wasn’t a very exciting mushroom compared to what was next.
These cute mushrooms had cute little tentacles around the edges. Again, no touching. I named this one Anemone Mushroom. Still not so exciting, but compared to how many mushrooms I normally get to see, it was exciting in that regard.
This next one reminded me of some of the hot spring pools at Yellowstone that I have seen on TV. The amazing thing is that these mushrooms stand 4 feet high. It was like being in a dinosaur movie. It’s a good thing that I’m 80 feet high or I might have gotten scared to get to close to them.
I thought that this next mushroom was a marshmallow but was assured by my daddy that it was merely “death on the ground.” So, I didn’t get to touch this one either. I named this one Smore Dead than Alive.
This one reminded me of Kansas. It’s a kind of albino-ish sunflower that shoots poisonous darts into your eyes. I named it Kansas Flower of Death.
The next fungi that we came across is noted for its behavior of scurrying around the forest floor and enveloping any hapless creature that it comes across into its gelatinous mass. It then slowly digests its prey in a painful and slimy process. I call this one Jelly Monster.
Most of these fungi, with the exception of Smore Dead than Alive, did not look very appetizing. With the combination of mommy and daddy’s continual warnings of stomach pumps and the possibility of death I eventually felt very hungry. I finally came across some Miracle and Cheese growing on the forest floor. Unfortunately it numbs any part of your body that comes in contact with it, so I didn’t get a chance to eat any – my fingers were too numb to get this yummy looking fungi into my mouth.
I like the next one because it reminds me of breakfast Saturday mornings when my daddy cooks Pumkincakes for us. I named this one, simply, Pumpkincake.
Here’s a little Rice Fungi…
This next fungi is one that only grows on trees so it can’t grow in Kansas. These are used as steps by the bears to get up into the trees since there are no branches down low. I don’t have a name for it exactly but I like to call it “cute.”
Here’s a side view…
This next fungi we saw was in the process of devouring some other fungi. We found a deer and a giraffe a little further down the trail that had just been devoured by this fungi. It is a very dangerous and lethal variety. I have no doubt that if Naked Jungle had been filmed in this forest the antagonist would have been this fungi. It will devour any living thing. I named it Slimy Black Death.
The last of the fungi I have to share is this very pretty variety. The little droplets on the bottom sides of the cap are of a very sweet variety which, when ingested, place the ingester into a highly neurotic state of paranoia and cause him to grow fingernails on the prints of his fingers.
That’s all I have for this post. If you want to see some of these things for yourself, just arrange with my mommy to take Tour 307 – Trail of the Fun Guy.
On day two of our Redwood Run with Auntie M...
My Mom continued to take pictures of the inside of E's nose...
Auntie M had her camera ready...
We explored new trails.
The trail had some wonderful views of the beautiful Smith river.
This is what we did not know--
Auntie M decided we should keep going
There were great large trees to keep us company.
Finally we came to the road that runs through the redwoods.
E. well fed in the back was very happy to see us.
We drove by the stump on the way out...
