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“Indian Pipes” or “Ghost Plant”
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red newt. my friend here, and the fungus photos, taken with an iPhone 5s
A walk in the woods today, turned out to be a macrofungi field trip. Still very damp, even mucky in places, after getting eight inches of rain in recent weeks. All these pictures, with the exception of the second one, were taken within a few hundred feet of each other.
UpState & Away - - - - Waterlooseneca.com 
I used to love to spend time upstate when I was a kid. I grew up on Long Island and there are no mountains, forests ad pristine places to explore there. A different world from L.I. and a different Universe from NYC and its boroughs!!!
I still have family there, my mother grew up in Rockville Centre. No hills but the Park that used to be the Merrick landfill is 11 stories tall
It’s been 47 years since I’ve seen it – I grew up in East Meadow.
Wow, that’s been a while! I’m hoping to go to Jones Beach in September
I used to frequent Gilgo. I did get a kick out of seeing the the Jones Beach toll booth in “The Godfather” movie when Sonny got shot up.
The only place outside of NYC I’ve been is Staten Island, and that’s still pretty much NYC — although I suppose if you live there you’d never conflate them. I’ve been amazed to learn about the Finger Lakes region, and other parts of the state, too, from bloggers. I had a dear blogging friend who grew up on a New York dairy farm, and ran it herself for years after her parents died. Interesting stories.
I can’t believe you have a newt here, too. I saw my first one on the blog of a fellow from Massachusetts, and was sure it wasn’t real. He was the one who taught me that the red-orange stage belongs to the juveniles, and that they’re called ‘red efts.” I think that’s a silly name, too, but what do I know? Now I have this vision of Newt Gingrich in my head.
All of those fungi are amazing. I can’t get over the colors. I do think the ghost plants are a little spooky. I’m not sure what they remind me of, but it’s not good. I wonder if I haven’t connected “Indian” and “ghost” and made the association with the Ghost Dance.
I hope you’re drying out a bit now. Even for the Texas coast, eight inches is a bunch.
The newts are pretty cute little guys, I’ve always liked them. There’s also salamanders, but they’re a bit more snaky-looking and most of them I see are black, not this nice orange-red color.
I really don’t remember seeing the bluish/purplish mushrooms before this summer.
Those Indian pipes are creepy, no question, like pale sinister imitations of flowers. And I didn’t even mention their other name, which is “Corpse Plant”.
Cool. That third one reminds me of sponges I’ve seen while scuba diving.
Hi Dave, yeah, it looks like an undersea growth to me, too. People around here call them “coral mushrooms”. It’s definitely pretty spongy around here this month, and raining again today. Everyone is talking about all the large toadstools popping up in their yards, and I’ve never seen so many fungi in the woods.