The newest addition to the oddly fascinating plant pathology pictures. I have no idea what's causing the amaryllis to turn red. Now it seems to have literally outgrown the problem: there are still small spots on the leaves but the leaves are very big in comparison.

Closer view.

A fuzzy bud in early spring.

A naturalist in the city.

I am always fond of trying different things, and this fruit which looks for all the world like an alligator pod is about as different as they come. It turns out it's called a salak and is native to Malaysia, Sumatra, and Java.

Peeling away the alligator skin, there are three lobes, each with a large seed inside. The fruit tastes like a cross between an almond and a banana, with a hint of strawberry... but with a texture more like a chestnut. It was good, but I would't want to be a salak farmer! The plants have vicious-looking spines, with the fruit growing in a little "nest" amid the spines.

A tiny green space near my school, filled to bursting with daffodils.

A day before, it had been a field of buds, I wanted to capture the sense of anticipation of hundreds of flowers just on the edge of opening - this photo is as close as I got.

Daffodil against the sky.

Could it be? This photo is from the walkway near my school.

It sure looks promising!

Closer inspection, though, reveals an unattached cap - typical for a Verpa bohimica, which is a sometimes-toxic relative of the morel.

Even closer inspection, though, shows that this is something unusual - a Morchella semilibera, the half-free morel. A Verpa would only have the cap attatched at the very tip, not partway down the stem as this one is. And they were fruiting in hordes right along the walkway! See the spoiler if you want to know how many are in this photo. Definite ones are circled, broken stems are marked with an arrow, places to check are marked with a dot. Most of the dots were morels - there were hundreds growing along the walkway.

However, mushroom hunting here in the Netherlands is a bit different. Hundreds of species are on the Red List or list of threatened species. Even species that are ridiculously common in Washington are considered rare here. The chanterelle has been hunted to extinction in the Netherlands. These guys, however, like disturbed soil along walkways and canals, and seem to be growing absolutely everywhere. I have to wonder if whomever made the red list was actually paying attention... but some species are included because they resemble endangered species, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the black morels are quite rare here.