Ruffled

I'm not a fan of ruffles, unless it's these kinds. The first one is a liverwort. Liverworts are a biological oddity, in more ways than one! First of all, they are only one cell thick. Yes, each of those flabby "leaves" is like a bundle of twigs, with tall cells side by side. The "leaf" is called a thallus. It's more like a sperm or egg, because it only has half the genetic material of a liverwort. At some point little stalks will appear with a capsule on the top which has the full number of chromosomes.



Next, we have orange ruffles. I don't know exactly what fungus this is- probably a polypore. I'll just stop rather than spouting misinformation.



Finally, I do know what this one is. It's violet-toothed polypore, most recently named Trichaptum biforme. It's really a polypore, but looks like a tooth fungus- hence the "biforme." It starts out bright purple, but quickly fades to this deeper purple and then brown to white.



Can't see the teeth? Let me help you.

	See Treasures at Nordhouse for a different orange polypore See Violet-toothed Polypore for a bright young specimen
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