Slowpoke Walk and 'Squamules'

I led a Bruce Trail 'Slowpoke Walk' today, along a 2 km. stretch of the trail that is one of my favourite.  The walk was dedicated to learning to identify trees as well as enjoying a nice two hours in the woods.  Remarkably, the mosquitoes weren't bad, and the rain never drenched us, though the humidity was high.

It was mostly a walk through beautiful forest, and we did identify 20 different species of trees, using a small pocket field guide I wrote several years ago.  But we also followed the trail down a deep ravine, past two waterfalls that I've shared in the past.  Today we just glimpsed this one through the tree leaves - sitting directly underneath a chalet.

The woods was very green today, in part because of the rain, but also the  moss, ferns and leaves were all at their brightest.

This old beech was covered in hoof fungus, or 'Ice-Man' Fungus, though I liked the bright green moss on the spreading roots equally well.  This type of fungus was found in the 5000 year old Ice Man's pack, apparently used for fire-starting.

Eventually we would our way down to the stream in the bottom of the ravine, falling steadily down over shelves of limestone.

And on many of the dying Elm trees down there along the creek we found these Dryad's Saddle fungi.  They're a polypore, with pores, not gills on the underside.   Also known as Pheasant's Back Fungus.

The 'squamules' are the scales on top of this fungus.  You learn something new everyday, eh!

I haven't resolved the computer issues, but I was able to load the pictures still on the memory card into my laptop and get it set up the way I want, so I'll still be here blogging away!