Sometimes there’s a non-wildflower item that demands notice! In our woods, there were several of these big ruffly fungi all growing around an old tree stump (my hand added for scale). I took these July 21; now they’ve pretty much withered, darkened and disappeared. I’m finding fungus identification difficult — there are many that look similar to me, and there can apparently be lots of variation within a species. That said, I think this is a Giant Polypore — can get to be 30 inches in diameter.
Giant Polypore, Black-staining Polypore (Meripilus giganteus)
Thanks for looking up the fungi, on a side note, I ran into a coyote in that same wetland spot that I met you folks at on Monday. I spotted the coyote around 5 pm. It was at least 65 pounds and brown in color. Greg
Interesting! I’ve never seen a coyote there. I guess more interesting critters come out around twilight…
Also, I was thinking, there is another blog you would be interested in. There is a guy who writes a lot about Charles River Peninsula and Ridge Hill. It’s mostly from a birding perspective; he takes care of some of the bluebird houses at CRP. Interesting to see what someone else observes there. it’s at http://smilingpond.blogspot.com/