10/28/2026
The best part of a quick trip to the coast is the biology.
The first few photos are nurse logs. When a big tree falls, the rotting log becomes a seedbed: moist, nutrient rich, and raised above competition on the forest floor. Seedlings root into the decaying wood and eventually send roots down around it to reach the soil. Swipe through to see whatās left once the log rots away; a tree standing on silted, cascading roots.
Next is a western red cedar with two competing trunks. A deer likely snacked on the leader when it was a sapling, over a century ago, and two side branches have been racing to the top ever since.
Then, a living stump. No needles, no leaves, no photosynthesis, but still alive. Its roots grafted onto a neighbouring treeās, and that tree has been feeding it sugars; leading to the stump to slowly grow bark back over the cut.
The last two are fruiting bodies of fungi. I didnāt do a spore print so Iām not going to wager a guess on the yellow guys, but the red ones are Mycena haematopus; the bleeding red fairy helmet. It gets the name from the red ooze it secrets after snapping a stem.
