Fungus Archives - Heartland Safari

White dusty coating of Powdery Mildew on the leaves of Wild Bergamot in the prairie garden. The purple flower head of the host plant is visible at top of frame.

Alien Marvel: Powdery Mildew

Updated July 27, 2025

When I was growing up in the sixties, my science teacher had us learn the classification system for plants and animals. That is, we learned that there were kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. And we learned that there were two kingdoms—plants and animals. A lot of science and classifying has gone on […]

Fungus

Karen inspects a large, 18-inch-wide mass of mushroom fruiting bodies at the base of a silver maple tree on Owl Acres. Hen of the Woods is past its vegetative stage for the season (meaning, no mushrooms for us this year).

Dancing Mushrooms: Maitake or Hen-of-the-Woods

Updated December 9, 2024

There’s a venerable old silver maple standing proud and strong in the woods on Owl Acres. It’s probably the largest and oldest tree on the place. At its feet colonies of mushrooms spring up every fall. The colonies vary in size but average around a foot in diameter. One common name for this mushroom is […]

Fungus

Blue green lichen on walnut bark. The lichen is tight to the surface, like paint.

Productive Partnerships: Lichens

Updated June 10, 2024

Lichens—they’re everywhere. I recently traveled to the temperate rainforest of the Oregon coast and was intrigued with the profusion of lichens that grace this area. But you don’t need a rainforest to support lichens. Some 478 species of lichens live in Iowa, lots of them on Owl Acres. Lichens are often mistaken for moss, but […]

Fungus

The unkempt woods on Owl Acres. The house is faintly visible in the morning haze.

Soil Part 6: Mycorrhizal Fungi

Updated August 24, 2023

Wherever I walk on Owl Acres, there’s a living web under my feet holding it all together. That web is created by a particular type of fungus called mycorrhizal fungi. Sometimes they pop up various varieties of mushrooms like the beloved morels, but generally they are busy doing other things. Mycorrhizal fungi consist of a […]

Fleshy, cone-shape fruiting body of a morel mushroom stands atop a short, hollow stem, amid green foliage on a forest floor. Reproductive spores are produced and dispersed from the hollows and folds of the flesh.

The Best of Things: Morel Mushrooms

Updated April 27, 2023

I’ve always associated lilacs, peonies, and Mother’s Day with morel mushrooms. Hunting them each spring was a family ritual. Dad would gather all us kids and we’d troop out to the woods. He knew just where to look for them. Some years we’d come home triumphant with a bag full. Other years we’d find only […]

Fungus

Pea-size purple berries hang individually from leafless twigs. Hackberry fruits.

Teeming with Life: Hackberry

Updated February 9, 2023

On a frigid evening in late winter, I love to sit in my favorite chair beside a blazing fire in the fireplace. Dave lies on my feet, and I revel in the warmth, and the popping, fizzing, roaring, chuckling, murmuring of the fire. The wood we’re burning is a mix of things gathered from downed […]

1919 magazine advertisement from Woman’s Home Companion for Yeast Foam and Magic Yeast for making bread. Features a small boy in a sailor’s pinafore, delighted with his slice of homemade bread.

Cheers!

Updated January 5, 2023

As we survey the life on Owl Acres, we have been thinking about the big things. We owe a lot, though, to those tiny one-celled organisms that are everywhere. Yeast for instance. Yeast cells are so small that you need a microscope to see them. And yet, each individual cell is a living, active member […]

Fungus

White, brain-shaped mushroom in a meadow. Giant puffball is about the size of a soccer ball.

Fungus and Fairies

Updated December 5, 2022

The other day while we were tramping about near the creek, we came upon a colony of cantaloupe-sized giant puffballs growing in the grass. They were past eating, but reminded us of an episode a few years ago while we were living in a big apartment building. One autumn day, Bryan found a puffball as […]

Fungus