Fungus among us

In Room D2 Director A... had me look at a fungus matt located on one of the low bushes (?name). She had been reading about parasitic fungus from Australia/New Caledonia and wondered if perhaps this particular plant’s fungus might be an example. I asked her for a couple of glass slides with which I took a scraping of the fungus. We took the slides into the plant pathology lab and used a microscope to view the slide. We saw what looked to me to be standard dimorphic fungus with yeast forms and septate hyphae. There were branches at 45 degree angles, and fusiform conidia. I suspect this is a common fungus, perhaps Aspergillus sp. We also saw a small 6 legged insect/mite.

In Room D2 (“Dwight’s room” as A... calls it) I trimmed a tree palm (species?) branch, and then scrubbed sooty mold off from a fig tree that had been hidden by the tree palm branch.

In Room C3 I repotted a large ZZ plant from an old white plastic pot to a new large terracotta pot (not the largest pot tho). I used a 50:50 mix of bark and arid mix (as recommended by B...)

I also repotted a small yucca tree from a plastic pot into one of the largest terracotta pots. The soil had to be teased off the roots and replaced with an arid mix (no bark). Curator J... asked me to saw off the root ball at the bottom to stimulate fresh root growth.

Three different groups of high school students toured the greenhouse while I was there. The greenhouse staff acted as tour guides.