A collection of pictures from 3 hours in the woods….about 30 minutes to cycle up to the start of the trail and 15 minutes down again..
I was out in the woods looking for fungi yesterday….the last thing I’d expected to find in the dark coniferous woods was strawberries and cream ;) No, I didn’t eat them, leaving them for the elves…
Called strawberries and cream, the bleeding tooth fungus, the red-juice tooth, or Devil’s tooth, Hydnellum peckii (Norwegian: skarp rustbrunpigg) is a widespread species in North America, Europe and Asia. It is related to the hedgehog fungus. Sadly, it doesn’t taste much like strawberries and cream, tasting very sharp…
See more about it here: http://botanycourse.com/hydnellum-peckii/
Last night’s dinner: risotto made with rye and barley grain instead of rice with wild and cultivated vegetables and wild fungi:
Parsley, coriander, golpar (Heracleum maximum seed spice), 3 types of pea, baby carrots and broad beans, red mitsuba, 3 types of chicory, common sow thistle (Sonchus), saffron milk caps (matriske), hedgehog fungus (piggsopp), chanterelle (kantarell), Russula spp. , garlic, chili, nettle (variegated), swiss chard (mangold) and Allium nutans…
To sign up for dinner for two at my place, please sign up below ;)
This is a nice new edimental Allium, although its identity is still being discussed by the experts!
I received seed of this a few years ago from my friend Hristo Hristov in Bulgaria under the name “mountain slizun” He wrote: “The woman who sent them to me is not an avid collector, so I highly doubt she knew it’s Latin name. I guess the seeds were collected near her city in Kazakhstan (map of the collection location: http://tinyurl.com/hdt5pk6)
Slizun is Allium nutans, but the name she called it could be just how she calls it”
Based on pictures I posted on the Alliorum forum last year,Mark McDonough thought it’s probably a hybrid, although with close affinity to the flowers of Allium flavescens. However, the leaves of my plant are broader than that species. Other possibilities are both Allium senescens and A. nutans both of which are found in Kazakhstan. This year there was some variation in flower colour, one quite pink (I guess I planted several seedlings). Whatever it is, it’s a nice plant.
Oystercatcher / tjeld family at Grilstad, taken on my bike ride back from work! ;)
Aster tripolium (syn Tripolium vulgare) / sea aster / strandstjerne bottom right in the water near the end :)
Pictures from my cycle home from work with a large detour up into the woods to pick bilberries and fungi!
The video that comes first is the magical moment when I discover a large ring of hedgehog fungi in the forest :)
I passed this large flock of mainly swifts over a wheat field at Være on my bike ride yesterday :) Click on the link to see the video!
Here’s more evidence for the importance of having sparrows in our gardens! In the video can be seen both house and tree sparrows (gråspurv og pilfink) feeding on diamond back moth (kålmøll) larvae from kale leaves!
While we’re on the subject of taro (Colocasia esculenta), I’m reminded that it can make an excellent edimental house plant which I put out in the garden in summer! The dark leaved cultivars such as Black Magic are particularly edimental!
I remember posting an article about a new material that had been developed inspired by the water repellent leaves of Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla spp.). Another species with very high water repellence (so-called superhydrophobicity) is the root vegetable taro (Colocasia esculenta) . Here it is demonstrating what is known as the Lotus effect on my balcony! See more at https://en.wikipedia.org/
