iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

It isn’t quite time yet for Aesculus californica to be leafing out, but I do love seeing its silvery branches in the winter when they’re doing their best to look like an indecipherable metal logo. 🌱📷📸

A high-contrast B&W, wide-angle photo of a California buckeye shrub (or small tree, depending on how you draw the line). The convoluted tangle of branches are a stark whites and light greys against a nearly black forest floor, with only a small portion of white sky visible near the top of the frame.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

A 10-minute monster performance of Fläsket Brinner playing (when Bo Hansson still in the band!) at the Stockholms Konserthus back when they were supporting the Mothers of Invention in late 1970. Krautrock-levels of hypnotic repetition building to fiery intensity! m.youtube.com/watch?v=vSL0...

m.youtube.com

Collage från Konserthuset

YouTube video by Fläsket brinner - Topic

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Fav fungal finds of 2025, vol. 6: Hericium erinaceus. A real treat to see this one show up growing right in my own yard again, just in time for a holiday feast! 🍄📷📸

Growing out of the rough-barked trunk of a dead Quercus lobata is Hericium erinaceus, a “lion’s mane mushroom”. Its fruiting body is a dense cluster of hundreds of downward-dangling soft “spines”, and is a cream white color with touches of light brown on the more aged portions at the top.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

“Just a few” snow geese taking off after a bald eagle made a low pass over the flooded fields down in the Central Valley.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Fav fungal finds of 2025, vol. 5: Gymnopilus ventricosus. A related east-coast species, G. subspectabilis (the so-called “Big Laughing Gym”), is psychoactive, but this west-coast counterpart apparently is not. It is, however, supposed to be a great mushroom for making a gold-colored fabric dye.

Against the rough, greyish-brown bark of Pinus ponderosa is a cluster of four young mushrooms of varying sizes. The entire basidiocarps are a rich golden yellow with a brownish fibrillose texture. The caps have an inrolled margin with a cottony partial veil.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Fav fungi of 2025, Vol. 4: Collybia nuda. It’s not in Clitocybe anymore, but with that vibrant purple and a distinctive scent which somehow smells EXACTLY like opening up a can of Minute Maid frozen orange juice concentrate, there’s no mistaking it for anything but a blewit. Quite tasty, too! 🍄📷📸

Against a background of decaying oak leaves and pine needles is a lilac-colored mushroom. Its gills are the most vibrant purple, with its smooth cap a slightly warmer hue and its stipe a cooler and paler tone.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Another from the 2025 fungal retrospective: Clavaria fragilis, a ghostly white little saprobe with the charming colloquial name of “fairy fingers”. 🍄📷📸

From a forest floor consisting of a mix of decaying wood and other dead vegetation is a tight cluster of numerous thin, white, club-like basidiocarps, some with the occasional little fork at the end like the antler of a young buck, but never fully branched out into many tips. They’re almost totally opaque, but have just a little touch of transparency to them in thinner areas that make them look like they’re made of milk glass. One cluster of dozens stands erect and packed together, while a second smaller cluster curves out and upward in a jaunty fashion.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

All of this rain certainly has Deer Creek looking rather vigorous.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Next up in the look back at this season’s favorites: good ol’ Stropharia ambigua. Between their color, form, size, and sheer numbers, these never disappoint. 🍄📷📸

A Stropharia ambigua mushroom growing next to a blackberry plant. Its stipe is white, floccose, and sinuously curved. Its umbonate pileus is the pale, warm yellow color of a Meyer lemon and is lightly viscid. The margin of the cap is fringed with dangling white remnants of the partial veil, like frosting icicles on a gingerbread house. Its gills are a purplish grey with lighter edges. The three leaves of the blackberry (Rubus armeniacus) to its left are a much paler yellow (less Meyer lemon and more lemon chiffon pie) with green radiating from their veins. The ground is covered in the leaves and needles of Quercus kelloggii and Pinus ponderosa.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

My low-effort resolution this year was to start posting over here again, so… I’m back! Apologies to anyone who follows me elsewhere for the re-runs, but I figured I’d share a few of my favorite mushrooms I’ve encountered over my absence. Kicking things off: Amanita calyptroderma! 🍄📷📸

A large Amanita mushroom emerges from the forest floor. Its pileus is an ochreous tan fading to dull gold at the prominently striated margin. This is capped with a solid white patch of its universal veil on top, like a fresh snowfall on a well-rounded hill. The stipe is a cream color with a somewhat shaggy veil, and is growing out of a large, free volva.

Another large Amanita mushroom emerges from the forest floor again, viewed from a lower angle. Its pileus is a light ochreous brown fading to dull gold at the margin, which is somewhat less prominently striated than the first picture, as this one is a bit younger. The veil remnant on top is not visible from this angle, but you can see the gills, which are a pristine white. Its stipe is similarly bright white, with a ruffled double annulus. The volva at the base is just barely visible, but is mostly submerged in the soil.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

As of yesterday, I have officially reached the “Breaking Down” stage of the Snag Cycle. Yay for 40, I guess?

An informative plaque shows what happens to a tree after it dies, in a process called “The Snag Cycle”. It begins with a freshly deceased tree (“The snag”), followed by “Bark falling off”, then “Snag breaking down”, “The snag has fallen”, and finally, “The stump”.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Pollinator time out in the garden. I know it’s a rare thing for me to be posting something cultivated, but with a bloom like that, I couldn’t resist. 🌱🪲📷📸

A honeybee perches on the black disc florets of a “Midnight Rouge” sunflower. Its ray florets are burgundy red with a proximal burst of golden yellow.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Paeonia brownii. These native peonies have such striking flowers, yet they can be easy to miss while walking down a trail, as the flowers face downward, showing only hints of burgundy petals from the side. If you you flip them over like this, however, they are quite a sight to behold! 🌱📷📸

Against a background of dried Pinus ponderosa needles and a few incised, celadon-green leaves from the plant itself, is the upturned flower of a Western Peony. It has eight petals which fade in color from white proximally, to brick red centrally, to a dull, faintly greenish yellow distally. At the center of the flower is a ring of a dozen or so little green lines with three large, green, almond-shaped carpels emerging from the center of them. If that wasn’t enough, it finally takes thing completely over the top by having a profusion of dozens of bright yellow stamens shooting out in a ring around the outside of the lobes.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

A fungal flashback from earlier in the year: Verpa conica, a not-quite-a-morel in Morchellaceae. Quit giggling at the back of the class — it looks like a daikon radish wearing a cloche and *certainly* not like anything else. 🍄📷📸

Against a background of Quercus chrysolepis debris is an “early morel”, which isn’t truly a proper morel at all, as its cap is freely connected. The pileus is brown, campanulate, not wrinkled like a true morel, and is relatively small in proportion to its long, thick, cream-colored stipe.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

Aphyllon franciscanum. I’ve been wanting to see these golden weirdos for a while now and I lucked out and found multiple clusters in the same ultramafic hillside where I saw the Brodiaea sierrae, as they’ve also adapted to handle the harsh, nutrient-poor conditions of serpentine soil. 🌱📷📸

Two clusters of solid golden yellow plants consisting only of stems and flowers against a background of dry grass. Each highly glandular pedicel ends in a narrow, downward-curving, trumpet-shaped flower. Like most plants in Orobanchaceae, these are parasites. Their lack of chlorophyll (or even any leaves at all!) is the big clue there — I mean, if they aren’t photosynthesizing, they’ve got to be getting their energy from *somewhere*, right? In this particular case, they predominantly parasitize Eriodictyon or Phacelia, and given that these were all growing in the vicinity of big stands of Eriodictyon californicum, that isn't a big surprise.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

Been enjoying the debut release by The New Eves quite a bit. A blend of post-punk and English folk revival that reminds me at times of ‘Furia’ by The Fates, the short-lived group started by Una Baines of The Fall. Bonus points for the descending “Holiday in Cambodia”-inspired riff on this track: 🎧

m.youtube.com

The New Eves - Highway Man

YouTube video by TheNewEvesVEVO

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

Rhododendron occidentale. A ubiquitous shrub of Pacific forests, it may not have the giant blooms of its cultivated cousins, but it more than makes up for it by having one of the most divine scents you’ll ever encounter in the woods. You’ll smell it before you even see it yards down the trail! 🌱📷📸

A lovely white flower with five petals, the topmost of which has a prominent yellow patch at its center. The stamens and style are both heavily exserted.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

Happy International Cat Day from this ridiculous beast.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Okay, last pic of Brodiaea sierrae, I swear! This time, however, it’s my attempt to immortalize it through my rusty and questionable ink & watercolor skills. Remind me next time to not to wait until the last day to try to make something like this for a gift, especially when I’m so out of practice.

An 8×10” ink & watercolor illustration of the inflorescence of Brodiaea sierrae. The flower consists of a magenta-purple perianth with six narrow tepals, a central column of closely-spaced white stamenodes with bent tips, and yellow reproductive junk in the middle. It is isolated against a simple abstract background consisting of splotches of green with a few spatters of yellow and tan, vignetted darker at the corners. It was made with a 0.30mm Micron pen and watercolors (a hodgepodge of brands–Winsor & Newton, Grumbacher, and a few Sennelier) on Baohong cold pressed paper.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Brodiaea sierrae again, but with a little something extra—a mystery gall on its stem. From what I’ve read, this is formed by an undescribed species (!) of midge in the genus Lasioptera that seems to have a preference for Brodiaeoideae. 📷📸🌱🪲

Against the dark background of an early evening landscape consisting of dried grasses, the orbicular sage-green leaves and rusty-red stems of Arctostaphylos viscida, and the distant silhouettes of Hesperocyparis macnabiana, is a large Brodiaea sierrae. It has one flower at full anthesis (six narrow, purple, recurved tepals with a greenish abaxial central stripe, arranged is a vase shape) and seven unopened buds (striped green and cream), arranged in an umbel. Its stem is sinuously curved and the top ~8cm is swollen by ~8–10mm from the gall of a species of midge so new and understudied that it doesn’t even have a name yet.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Brodiaea sierrae, a rare plant with limited distribution which occurs only in four counties in northern California and nowhere else in the world. Formerly considered B. californica, but it turns out that it’s not only a different species, but actually more closely related to B. leptandra. 📷📸🌱

Against the mottled background of a serpentine outcropping is the inflorescence of Brodiaea sierrae, a member of the Brodiaeoideae subfamily of Asparagaceae. Well, according to AGP IV, at least—Jepson still calls the subfamily Themidaceae. I prefer the former due to the novelty of having to say a word with five vowels in a row. It has three narrow, linear petals and three sepals, all of which are on the magenta side of lilac. At the center of the corolla are three white stamenodes, spaced tightly enough that they are almost (but not quite!) touching each other, and each are bent at a jaunty angle a few millimeters from their apeces. Within those can be seen three anthers and a stigma, all of which are lemon yellow with a bit of white.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Asarum hartwegii. What a fuzzy weirdo! (Yes, I know... “turn on your monitor”) Here in California, Aristolochiaceae only has a few species of Asarum and one equally weird Aristolochia, but there are hundreds more species in the tropics. 📷📸🌱

Against a background of forest floor debris (mostly dead Quercus kelloggii leaves and Pinus ponderosus needles) is the flower of Asarum hartwegii—a California endemic commonly known as Hartweg’s wild ginger due to the scent of its foliage, but bearing no relation to actual ginger, which is a monocot. The flower consists of three brownish-burgundy colored sepals which are triangular with filiform-attenuate apices, faintly striated, and HEAVILY hirsute. And the stems are somehow even hairier!

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Diplacus angustatus, a CA endemic. Phrymaceae (if your field guide is old, you’ll find most of ’em in Scrophulariaceae as the genus Mimulus) is a family that never disappoints me, especially when it comes to the short ones with proportionally big flowers compared to their compact foliage. 📷📸🌱

A close-up of the flower of Diplacus angustatus. The zygomorphic corolla consists of five fused lobes, the top two of which are larger than the bottom three. They are magenta in color, fading to white at the center, with a burgundy spot at the base of each lobe, burgundy speckling inside the throat, and there is a U-shaped yellow patch covering the base of the bottom three lobes.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

Finally saw a Delphinium nudicaule! Larkspurs are abundant in my area, but all of the local species are purple/blue, so the thought of seeing a red one has always excited me. This species is out of my range, but I found it on a steep hillside during a day trip NW of me earlier this season. 📷📸🌱

Against a dark background of green vegetation is a Red Larkspur (Delphinium nudicaule), a very striking member of the Ranunculaceae family. Its inflorescence is a raceme with at least ten open blooms and eleven buds in varying states of maturity, along with three spent blooms that are now fruiting. The flowers are scarlet red with an orange inner corolla and possess that prominent nectar spur that you would expect from the genus. The fruits are green, glabrous, and tipped with just a little bit of purple.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

As much as I love his output, my all-time favorite Bowie track somehow isn’t a song that showcases his amazing creativity, but it’s instead one that was mostly Visconti & Ronson taking the helm to play hard stuff. So despite it being lyrically dumb as hell, I’m the one person who’s going with this:

m.youtube.com

She Shook Me Cold (2020 Mix)

YouTube video by David Bowie - Topic

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

RIP, Simon House. First heard this at age 17 or so while reading online about the history of metal & it blew my mind how it was released before the first Black Sabbath album. Little did I know it, but it was the seed of an obsession w/ heavy ’60s–’70s obscurities that hasn’t left me decades later.

m.youtube.com

Futilist's Lament (2023 Remaster)

YouTube video by High Tide - Topic

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Cicadidae sp., cf. Platypedia putnami. 📷📸🟢🪲

A cicada perched on the lichen and moss-covered trunk of a large Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). Its body is mostly black with an occasional thin stripe of orange, and its wings are transparent with thin black veins. It’s nestled into a small mossy patch, the sporangia of which are roughly proportional to the cicada as a small stand of tulips would be to a human.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Even before it blooms, Calochortus albus still manages to be thoroughly elegant in form. 📷📸🌱

Against a background of Aesculus californica leaves is Calochortus albus, commonly called the Fairy Lantern or Globe Lily. It's three nodding buds are unopened and spring green, while its stem and lanceolate leaves are a pale celadon green.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

For your World Goth Day listening pleasure: a strong contender for my favorite song to come out of that scene last year. Sounding somewhat like a punkier version of Xmal Deutschland, these Australians are worthy of more attention, as I’ve seen surprisingly little mention of them online.

dionysuseora.bandcamp.com

Silhouette, by Dionysus

from the album Theatre of Dionysus

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

One of the oddest and least poppy-ilke members of Papaveraceae, Dicentra formosa never disappoints. They’ve faded out at lower elevations now, but still look great in shady spots above 4000ft or so. 📷📸🌱

Against an out-of-focus background of green vegetation and softly lit coniferous forest is an inflorescence of Dicentra formosa, the Pacific bleeding heart. Its panicle has seven pendent flowers, each of which is vaguely cordate in shape, flaring out to a narrow opening. The sepels are purple and petals a rosey pink tinged with occasional purple.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

As much as I love all the more creative and cinematic music videos out there, I think the “chroma-keyed Beat Club performance, c. 1970” look will always be my favorite. Many have imitated it since, but Ölüm have just nailed it. FULLY committed to the bit. Pretty great Anatolian rock revival, too.

m.youtube.com

ÖLÜM - Şu Dünyaya Gözlerimi Açtım Açalı

YouTube video by ÖLÜM

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Quercus kelloggii is widely known for its beautiful golden-brown hues in the autumn, but I feel like the incredibly vibrant magenta protective pigmentation of the margins of the new leaves in spring (and that downy texture!) is underappreciated. 📷📸🌱

Against a background of green vegetation is a young leaf of California black oak (Quercus kelloggii). It is pinnately lobed, each lobe three tipped, with deep sinuses between the lobes. The leaf is green proximally and along the central vein, but rapidly fades to a dull purple and finally to a bright magenta at the margins. Its texture is HEAVILY pubescent with fine white hairs that are quite soft to the touch.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

📽️ “10 French films to get to know me” (or by which to know to avoid me?) Le frisson des vampires À l’ombre de la canaille bleue La papesse Le sang d’un poète Je, tu, elles… Week-end Litan: La cité des spectres verts Le seuil du vide L’éden et après Ogroff (I was so tempted to just go all-Rollin)

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Triteleia bridgesii. Easily mistaken for T. laxa from a distance, but T. bridgesii’s anthers are always attached at the same level and T. laxa is typically a more uniform purple without a lighter region at the center of the corolla. 📷📸🌱

Against a mottled green background of vegetation is the flower of Triteleia bridgesii. It has three lanceolate-linear petals and three elliptic-linear sepals, both of which are ~15mm in length and are a lavender purple that fades to a much lighter shade proximally, with hyaline vescicles in the tube of the corolla giving it a glittery, glassy appearance. And if all of that wasn’t enough to excite you, get this—its six anthers are a lovely shade of cobalt blue!

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

Dermacentor occidentalis. Heading down a trail the other day, I decided to turn around when the number of ticks visible on grass stalks reached the dozens. 📷📸🪲

Against the background of my palm is the head of a green stalk of grass (don’t ask what type; Poaceae is out of my wheelhouse) are three Pacific Coast Ticks (Dermacentor occidentalis); two facing upward, the bottom one facing downward.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

If anyone needs me, I will be hanging out in this rather sizable Quercus chrysolepis.

Against a blue sky and green vegetation is a massive, candelabra-shaped canyon live oak (Quercus chrysolepis). Perched around four feet up the branches is the idiot whose posts you are reading. He is wearing olive drab pants, a teal shirt (which looked a MUCH nicer sage-green in the eBay listing, but the seller’s photo was horribly white balanced and I was too conflict-avoidant to raise a fuss about it), a khaki vest, and an old dove-grey Resistol hat.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Clarkia sp., cf. C. arcuata. One thing I really love about Clarkias is how they can look like they’ve got a tiny palm tree growing inside their flower in the species where the stigma is exserted so far up above the anthers. 📷📸🌱

Against a soft background of mottled greens and the occasional splash of yellow from out-of-focus Jensia rammii is the bowl-shaped flower of a Clarkia. Its four broadly obovate petals are colored bright pink which fades to white proximally and are very finely striated with a ragged terminal edge. Inside are four visible purple anthers (there are eight total) with a pale yellow stigma shaped like a reflexed × on a mottled red style.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Apatensis ornata. The first tiger moth of the season! 📷📸🪲

Against the vibrant green of a zucchini leaf is a delightfuly gaudy Apatensis ornata, commonly known as the ornate tiger moth. Its head is fuzzy, antennae feathery, and its wings are folded against its body. The entire moth is a peachy orange with geometric blocks of black (or black with angular streaks of peachy orange, if you prefer), hence its name.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Pollinator heaven. The sheer variety of form and color found growing in the wild in only a few square feet never fails to amaze me. Makes me wish I could shrink down and hike through it like a jungle. Purple: Salvia sonomensis Red: Castilleja sp. Yellow: Calochortus monophylus 🌱📷📸

Backlit by dappled rays of sunlight is a small-but-dense patch of wildflowers. The predominant species is Salvia sonomensis, a mat-forming sage with pale purple tiered inflorescences that stand tall above its fragrant foliage. At the ground level, there are also scattered Calochortus monophylus, a small yellow member of the Liliaceae family. Brightest of all, however, is a stand of Castilleja with inflorescences consisting of inconspicuous yellow tubular flowers that are totally overshadowed by the masses of bright, fire-engine red bracts that surround them. Not sure what the species is, as they can be tricky to suss out and there’s definitely no way to tell from this distance. A hemiparasite in Orobanchaceae, it’s likely parasitizing the Arctostaphylos viscida or Heteromeles arbutifolia that you can see behind this little natural garden.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Clematis sp., cf. C. lasiantha; a vine in Ranunculaceae. I didn’t think to examine these further, as I had forgotten there are two (very similar looking) species of Clematis that occur in my county, but based on habitat alone, I’ll tentatively go with C. lasiantha. 🌱📷📸

Against a background of green leaves and a few stray pine needles are two Clematis flowers, each with four white sepals and an absolute fireworks-explosion of numerous yellow and white reproductive parts.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Nemophila heterophylla (white), Geranium molle (pink), and Odocoileus hemionus ssp. columbianus (bones). Death and renewal. 🌱📷📸

On the shaded forest floor grows the small white flowers of canyon nemophila and pink flowers of dovesfoot cranesbill. On top of these are the bones of a Columbian black-tailed deer, likely scattered there by scavengers.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Collinsia heterophylla. With its tall purple & white inflorescences, you might mistake it for a lupine from a distance, but once you get closer, it’s abundantly clear that this isn’t anything in Fabaceae! It’s actually in the same family as snapdragons and foxgloves: Plantaginaceae. 🌱📷📸

Against a background of lush green grasses is a many-flowered inflorescence of Collinsia heterophylla. The flowers are arranged in radial whorls on the stem, with the bottom three tiers in bloom and the top two still just buds. Each flower has two upright, fused white petals above and two semi-fused purple petals below.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Amsinckia menziesii. Scorpioid cymes truly are one of the coolest-looking inflorescence shapes. 🌱📷📸

A close-up of a common fiddleneck (Amsinckia menziesii) in bloom. Its cyme spirals to the right with the blooming flowers on top and the buds underneath. The ten flowers progress from the oldest blooms on the left to the largest and freshest blooms on the right at the head of the spiral. They are yellow-orange and trumpet-shaped. The vegetation is bright green and bristly with spiky hairs. In the bottom half of the out-of-focus background, a stand of more Amsinckia can be seen growing in verdant green field with oaks on the hori6, while the top half is a deep blue sky.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

Agaricus deserticola. These weirdos are what is referred to as “secotioid”, which means they have a convoluted spore-producing mass inside called a “gleba” rather than proper gills, they don’t forcibly discharge their spores, and their cap never expands, instead merely cracking open with age. 🍄📷📸

Growing out of the sandy soil of a steep embankment is an odd agaricoid mushroom. Its pileus is spherical and scaly and its stipe is smooth and slightly bulbous at the base. A very light tan in color, the margins of the scales are a browner tan, some exhibiting yellow staining. There is also some yellow staining in a ring around the stipe. Behind it is a deep blue sky with sparse green vegetation.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

Lathyrus jepsonii. My first encounter with one of these; that color combo is quite striking! 🌱📷📸

Against a dark background of green vegetation twining its way through dried vines is a colorful inflorescence of papilionaceous flowers. Their banners are pink with darker magenta venation, their keels are white, and the unopened banners of the flower buds are a creamsicle-orange.

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🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

An impressive patch of Dipterostemon capitatus. One of the earliest wildflowers in my area, you’ll generally see these first appearing in February and lasting well into April when they typically start to fade out and have other members of the Brodiaeoideae subfamily crop up in their place. 🌱📷📸

On a spring-green grassy embankment, hundreds of Dipterostemon capitatus flowers bloom. Their inflorescence consists of a densely packed umbrella of 2–15 light purple flowers on a tall scape.

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