Biota of Marrowstone Island's Journal

This autumn has been crazy with mushrooms - more than I've ever seen in the 30 years I've lived on Marrowstone. This makes for a unique opportunity to find, document and ID mushrooms you may not see again for years. Besides dining on a steady supply, we are finding mushrooms we've never seen before.

See what other people are finding. Check out the 'Explore' feature on the iNat tool bar. I use the term Salish Sea to define the location I search. A vast majority of the observations being posted are of mushrooms. It would seem our local experts are coming out of the woodwork in response to the flurry of mushroom activity. I even had noted author Noah Siegel ID one of my fungus. But you have to give them something to work with.

The best way to photo document a mushroom is to get a good shot of the cap that represents the color, shape and texture. Then turn the cap over to document the gills and how they meet the stipe. Then get a shot of the whole length of the stipe. Sometimes the bulb is diagnostic. Finally, you might want to also take a spore print. Place the cap on a strip of dark paper to catch white and light colored spores, and a strip of white paper to catch dark spores.

Put this on your calendar if you would like to join the work party at the new Marrowstone Island Nature Preserve. I believe the primary target is to begin removing invasive plants. We will be cutting and pulling European Holly, Common Ivy, and probably worst, Spurge Laurel. Surprisingly, the 51 acres is happily devoid of the more common and aggressive noxious weeds, Scotch Broom, Tansy Ragwort and Reed Canary Grass - all devils to remove. Please check with Jefferson Land Trust https://saveland.org/stewardship-marrowstone/

JLT counted 57 volunteers showing up for this first of many work parties. We had people from all over eastern Jefferson County, including Marrowstone (naturally), Port Ludlow, Port Townsend, the Tri Area, Cape George and beyond. It was very inspiring to see how valued this new asset is to so many.

There are still more invasive plants to pull, cut and otherwise remove. The next scheduled work party, under JLT supervision and support, was said to be January 13. By then the water table will have risen considerably, so some areas will be under water. But there are many upland areas that need help by removing primarily spurge, holly and ivy.

For those of you who couldn't make this work party, stay tuned by getting on the JLT mailing list for future activities. You also might like to know JLT has reached out to the community for input. They have created the following survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/marrowstone Share your hopes and vision for this Marrowstone community park.