A week ago, I got to join the Field Botanists of Ontario on a field trip to the Dufferin County Forest Main Tract site for a mushroom I.D. walk. We saw all sorts of different mushrooms and had a ton of fun.
Scattered in the back of the Main tract there are many American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) trees. Some tall, some small, but they are there amidst the Red Oaks (Quercus rubra) and Sugar Maples (Acer saccharum). If you look close at the branches of these Beech trees you'll find little white fluffy insects dancing about in huge colonies. These are the Wooly Beech Aphid (Phyllaphis fagi) and they are there sucking sap out of the Beech tree. Now when any animal consumes their fill of whatever it is they are consuming, they must release the waste, and so too with the Aphids. This waste, called Honey Dew, is dropped and as it falls lands on the leaves, branches, and ground below. When this happens, the spores of the Honey Dew Eater (Scorias spongiosa) come around and land on the Honey Dew and begin their life cycle.
This weeks show I share some of what I have been reading about in regards to this community but specifically focusing on the life cycle of the Honey Dew Eater fungi.
To learn more :Mushrooms of Ontario and Eastern Canada by George Barron. Partners Publishing/Lone Pine 2014. Ascomycete Fungi of North America: A Mushroom Reference Guide by Michael Beug, Alan E. Bessette, Arleen R. Bessette. University of Texas Press, 2014. National Audubon Society Mushrooms of North America. Knopf, 2023.