Wood Ear Mushroom (Auricularia fuscosuccinea)

What does it mean to know a species of tree? If you can remember a species' leaf-shape, growth habit and bark, flower form, and fruiting structure, then you'll likely feel confident identifying a species in the wild. Anyone accompanying you should take your word for it when you identify that tree. Other pieces of information are just extra, right? Additional tree facts might even be considered too much information. Like, for instance, do you know how the species of tree typically decomposes? Does it tend to rot quickly, slowly, or not at all? And, if anyone should happen to bring up particular tree decomposers, then it's clearly time to end the conversation, otherwise you'll end up talking about 'wood ear'.... 

So, let's talk about mushrooms....  

The arboretum's only scarlet buckeye (Aesculus splendens) has died. It was planted in 1988. Last year, we posted about its declining health (read here), and all hints of greenness ceased toward the beginning of 2026.

After the tree died, we chose not to remove it, primarily because it had a handsome trunk that could serve as support for a nearby peppervine (Ampelopsis arborea), an aggressive, heavy vine native to Louisiana that produces black fruits. The trunk of the buckeye maintained a sturdy appearance throughout the summer, but, this fall, we see rapid decline. As luck would have it, scarlet buckeye is not rot-resistant; the trunk is quickly losing integrity, and a species of mushroom appears to be thriving and actively participating in the decomposition.

The scarlet buckeye was a small tree. It's trunk measures less than 4 inches across.

 

A large portion of the trunk is covered in a thick group of mushrooms. 

This is the early stage of development. We see clusters of little cups, resembling the bells of numerous jellyfish. What a weird thought.

Zooming in on the tiny cups, we can appreciate the fuzziness. 

The cups elaborate into a large, asymmetrical, light-peach colored sheet-like growth. Is this one mushroom, or several over-lapping mushrooms?

Zooming in doesn't help answer the above question, but we can better appreciate the interesting textures of the folds. Does it look like sea coral, or maybe even a curled-up octopus?

A portion of the growth was removed from the trunk. The texture was firm, rubbery, springy and durable. It did not crumble or fall apart. It was flattened out, but didn't tear. 

This side of the musroom was connected to the tree trunk. It is sessile, so that means it doesn't have a stalk to support it.

Based on the geographical location, the time of year, the hardwood species involved, and the morphology of the fungi itself, we're fairly confident locating this specimen in the genus Auricularia, the ear fungi, and possibly as Auricularia fuscosuccinea. Even without the species ID, we could correctly call this mushroom a 'wood ear', and wood ears are known to be edible.... Yum?

Big-Leaf Magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla)

Another germination project is underway. One of our big-leaf magnolias successfully produced fruit this year, so we have seeds to plant! Big-leaf magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla) is native to Louisiana, and it's a tree with a very interesting appearance, but perhaps too delicate for widespread plantings. 

The successfully reproductive big-leaf magnolia is pictured center. Its slight trunk is barely visible. We mainly see the large, floppy leaves extending from the tips of slender branches.  

Centenary alumnus Bonnie Bernard germinated this tree when she was a student in 2012; she or Dr. Leuck planted it in the arboretum the following year. That makes it 14 years old by the end of this year. We have seen flowers in previous years, but this is our first year to collect seeds. You can read more about it and see some older photos in this previous post.

The red, egg-shaped fruit was spied during the summer. (photo: 8/22/26) 

Approximately a month later, we now have fully visible seeds. The seeds were positively ejecting themselves from the cone ("bombs away!") when the branch was jostled for this photo.

The slender tree branches are flexible. A ladder wasn't needed to collect the fruit, but it was nice to have someone hold the leaves down so that the fruit could be snipped.

 

These orangish-red (cinnabar? vermilion?) seeds are ready for dispersal.

Magnolia macrophylla seeds collected September 2026

We collected 34 seeds, some of which are noticeably discolored. We aren't sure about the quality of the seeds collected―the dark spots and brownish coloration suggest that those seeds might be defective―but they will all be given a fair chance to germinate. 

Barred Owl (Strix varia)

Let's take a moment to celebrate the continued success of the Arboretum as a functional local ecology; we've got another photo of a barred owl (Strix varia)! Is it the same owl that was recently photographed by Professor Amy Hammond? If it's not, we've got at least two resident strigids. If it is, we've got one that is rather comfortable with us. We're winning either way.

The photos below were submitted by Centenary student Hilary Pillaro. 

The owl is pictured in the center of the frame, fairly close to the ground. It is perched above a sprinkler that was operating the previous night. The arboretum's inhabitants (robins, rodents, bugs, squirrels, toads, etc...) have begun congregating around the sprinklers due to a month of hot & dry weather.

Barred Owl (Strix varia) photographed by Hilary Pillaro

August 24, 2026

Keeping looking up! 

Feral Honey Bees (Apis mellifera)

The Eurasian Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) has been present in North America for around four centuries. This interesting bug has been living alongside human settlements for thousands of years, semi-domesticated and feral. Our blog post concerns the latter variety, although where they came from and exactly what they are will remain a mystery. Apis mellifera has between two to three dozen subspecies, some of which have been repeatedly introduced to our area. Once they've gone feral and potentially hybridized with other honey bees, only a genetic test would be able to settle exactly what they are.

 

They've made their home in the middle of the arboretum, in a damaged trunk of a loblolly pine (Pinus taeda). If anyone happens to be looking up, they will only notice a dark spot along the trunk. This honey bee home is nondescript, totally flying under the radar.

A closer inspection, with good lighting, will reveal the frenzy of eusocial activity.

These bees aren't bothering anyone, and their hive is protected by being fifteen or twenty feet above ground. It's unlikely that they'll cause a problem and they will definitely be aiding local pollination. 

Look Up!

How many folks walk around with an upward gaze? Straight ahead with a slight downward tilt seems like the best way to avoid tripping and stay safe. Walking paths are expected to be free of twigs and branches, so much of the time we can get away with looking downward (at our phones) while walking. But this week in the arboretum, we received a nice reminder to look up. 

This barred owl (Strix varia) was spotted in the middle of the arboretum. First seen perched on the railing of the long white wooden bridge that runs between the Student Union Building and Mickle Hall. Presumably it was hunting a critter scurrying around in the drainage channel. Upon being approached, the barred owl flew upward into this nearby pecan tree. Professor Amy Hammond snapped this photo.

 

Keeping our eyes to the ground (or to the phone) results in us failing to appreciate the intrigues occuring directly above us. How many birds of prey did you pass under today? Barred owls aren't seen every day in the arboretum, but neither are they uncommon. Who-who knows how common they are? Let's look up more often and try to get another owl photo.

French Mulberry (Callicarpa americana)

 

Toward the end of spring, we noted that the French mulberry flowers are without pizzazz (read here). The flowers are small and hidden and they simply do not dazzle.

The fruits, however, are wonderfully bright. Their sharp coloration is much appreciated in the August landscape. Some fruits are ripening now, while other shrubs are on a different timer, ripening through the month of August and into September. 

 

This shrub near the southwest corner of Mickle is covered in ripe fruits, but other shrubs in the arboretum have yet to begin the process.

Fruits are edible straight from the shrub, but they do taste better when used to make jelly. Yum!

Cypress Rust or Cypress Galls?

As students are currently flooding back onto campus and things are once again shifting into active term, your arboretum curator has taken the opportunity to remove branches and limbs from walking spaces. Living limbs, dead ones, branches covered in leaves, bare ones, and even the soft needles of cypress trees are being pruned away from the "head spaces" across the arboretum. While performing this seasonal maintenance near the Student Union Building, we noticed some rust-like growths in the pruned branches. Having struggled against cedar-apple rust (Gymnosporangium juniperii) for more than a decade, we are well-accustomed to unsightly rusts. But the simultaneous presence of white and purple growths on nearby branchlets made us do a double-take. 

 

What is going on with these cypress leaves? The unexpected amount of color variation gave us pause and attracted our attention.

 

These aren't rust at all! They're galls! Galls are growths created by tiny flies called cypress gall midges (Taxodiomyia sp.). These little critters are obligate parasites of the cypress, and the adult flies are terribly small. If you carefully dissected the large green-yellow gall on the right of the above photo, you could find tiny larvae crawling around in there, exerting chemical/enzymatic control over the tree. How odd!

Here we can see the life-cycle progress of gall-formation. They begin as white, budding, geometric-like structures seen on the left, which ripen into a frosty purple, pictured center. The galls then continue to mutate into more bulbous rusty lumps, like the one pictured on the right. These eventually fall from the tree and overwinter on the ground, finally releasing new midges during the following summer.

Beginning stage of gall development

Further development

Toward the end of gall development

 

See our previous post on this baldcypress from September 2019, which ends with a mention of this issue! Much water has passed under the bridge of life since then, but some things, including the Cecidomyiidae family of gall midges, never change.

 

 

External Link

NC State Extension Fact Sheet on Cypress Gall Midge