🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄
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mocata.bsky.social
🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄
@mocata.bsky.social
260 followers 26 following 790 posts
A doomed forest hermit with too many cats. Original photos of NorCal natural history with an emphasis on mycology & native botany, but occasionally posting stuff about heavy music and weirdo cinema. ☭

https://linktr.ee/mocata
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mocata.bsky.social
🍄Ipsissimus🍁Mocata🍄 @mocata.bsky.social · Oct 14
“For every like, I’ll post one song I love” has been making the rounds, but I’m going to put a different spin on it that both alleviates my indecision and possibly/hopefully produces more interesting results. (Yes, I’m old and prefer my hard drive filled with decades of accumulated music to Spotify)
A red and light grey on charcoal text image with ludicrously pretentious typographic choices proclaiming: “For every like, I will load my entire music library into a playlist, hit ‘play on random’, and then post the resulting track. if you’ve already liked this post and still want a new song, just reply with ‘Play another!’ and I will continue to serve as your weird little jukebox.”
mocata.bsky.social
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.

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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.
January 14, 2026 at 4:11 AM
mocata.bsky.social
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...
Collage från Konserthuset
YouTube video by Fläsket brinner - Topic
m.youtube.com
January 14, 2026 at 1:20 AM
mocata.bsky.social
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!

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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.
January 12, 2026 at 9:53 PM
mocata.bsky.social
“Just a few” snow geese taking off after a bald eagle made a low pass over the flooded fields down in the Central Valley.
January 10, 2026 at 8:25 PM
mocata.bsky.social
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.
January 9, 2026 at 6:38 PM
mocata.bsky.social
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!

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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.
January 6, 2026 at 10:40 PM
mocata.bsky.social
The unexpected best cover song of 2025.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Jo...
Father Figure by George Michael
YouTube video by Guts Club - Topic
m.youtube.com
January 5, 2026 at 7:49 PM
mocata.bsky.social
Another from the 2025 fungal retrospective: Clavaria fragilis, a ghostly white little saprobe with the charming colloquial name of “fairy fingers”.

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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.
January 5, 2026 at 7:00 PM
mocata.bsky.social
All of this rain certainly has Deer Creek looking rather vigorous.
January 4, 2026 at 12:54 AM
mocata.bsky.social
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.

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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.
January 3, 2026 at 10:03 PM
mocata.bsky.social
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!

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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.
January 2, 2026 at 7:42 PM
mocata.bsky.social
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”.
August 25, 2025 at 4:06 AM
mocata.bsky.social
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.

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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.
August 22, 2025 at 2:49 AM
mocata.bsky.social
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!

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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.
August 15, 2025 at 12:34 AM
mocata.bsky.social
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.

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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.
August 12, 2025 at 12:16 AM
mocata.bsky.social
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.

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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.
August 10, 2025 at 11:42 PM
mocata.bsky.social
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:
🎧
The New Eves - Highway Man
YouTube video by TheNewEvesVEVO
m.youtube.com
August 10, 2025 at 1:26 AM
mocata.bsky.social
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!

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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.
August 9, 2025 at 7:59 PM
mocata.bsky.social
Happy International Cat Day from this ridiculous beast.
August 9, 2025 at 3:22 AM
mocata.bsky.social
Someone found a sunbeam.

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A close-up of the ear of a grey tabby cat which is backlit by a ray of sunlight shining through the window of an otherwise dark room.
August 7, 2025 at 1:54 AM
mocata.bsky.social
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.
June 19, 2025 at 11:21 PM
mocata.bsky.social
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.

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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.
June 16, 2025 at 2:38 AM
mocata.bsky.social
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.

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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.
June 15, 2025 at 3:06 AM
mocata.bsky.social
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.

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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!
June 10, 2025 at 7:03 PM
mocata.bsky.social
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.

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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.
June 9, 2025 at 8:41 PM