Fun Guy

Actually, I just wanted to capture your attention with that title. I'm teaching high school biology at St. Stephen's and we're on the fungi module. Perhaps you're blase, like most of my students, to these fascinating creatures, but you should stop and consider what may be going on beneath your feet--probably not at this very moment, unless you're blogging on a nature walk--but in your yard and all around the woods. If it weren't for these remarkable saprophytes the trees would have choked in their own leaffall long ago, fallen logs would clog the woods, and recyclable nutrients would still be trapped in their originally bodies.
One morning, on the way to school, we saw a live, but dying, tree with a ladder of pumpkin-orange shelf fungi spiraling up its trunk. Over the course of a week or two the color changed from orange to gold to yellow, and finally faded to tan--as brilliant as the turning of the leaves. At school, in the bark mulch near my classroom I discovered striated birds' nest fungi. They look like miniature spiky puffballs until they pop open. Then they resemble tiny bird's nests complete with spore sacs that look like four tiny eggs. Most people would simply pass them by without noticing them, but now I've got the high schoolers and my 5th graders on the lookout for fungi! The amazing thing is--those are not the bodies of these "plants", they are actually the fruit. The real organism is a network of threads below the surface--imbedded in their organic dinner. These filaments may stretch for yards and are among God's decomposers. They break down dead plant material, like leaves and twigs and fallen logs, returning the nutrients to the soil to be used by other plants to grow.
God's designs are so amazingly intricate, yet practical--and beautiful, too. Enjoy!