Found in Tyler: Strange-Looking Growth

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Larry Lynch

Andrea and I were photographing our new listing at 2214 Elgem Street on Saturday morning. While she was staging I was shooting the exterior when I ran across what appeared to be a pile of potatoes on on the ground. On closer examination, it was a mushroom, but one I’d never seen before.
So of course I snapped a photo and when I got back to my computer I did a search for a potato-shaped mushroom and found that this is a “Rhizopogon rubescens“. While not an edible mushroom, it has a very pleasant smell. It’s actually found all over North America, but particularly under pine trees.

Blooms in February?

Posted on February 7, 2010 by Larry Lynch

A red maple in full bloom

I’m a photographer and winter is not my favorite season. My eye is drawn to color, and there are only so many scenes of grey and brown I can shoot. So last February I really enjoyed the unusually heavy blooms of the red maples. They seem to grow especially well in the creek bottoms and our neighborhood borders Shackelford Creek to our west. I walk it every morning with my dog.

I have shot the red maple many times in the fall, but this is the first time I’ve shot it in bloom.

Fall Treats: The Beautyberry

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Larry Lynch

East Texas fall foliage is just beginning to appear. The sweetgums will be turning soon and my cameras are ready.

This is the time of year when those beautiful purple berries appear all over this area. The bush is a Callicarpa , common name American Beautyberry. My dad called it a “French Mulberry” and I think Grandma had another name for it, as well. I was surprised to learn it’s sold through nurseries since it seems to be all over the woods around here. Birds and raccoons eat the berries and we enjoy the great color this time of year.

The Beautyberry feeds birds and small mammals in East Texas