The stars of the fungi world

22 Friday Oct 2021

Tags

British fungi, collared earthstar, earthstar, Earthstar fungi, Geastrum triplex

It’s that time of year when stars appear, as if by magic, from the earth and delight those of us lucky enough to find them with their outlandishness.

211022 earthstars (1) 211022 earthstars (2)

And so I made my annual pilgrimage to the location I found a few years ago in a Cardiff cemetery, where I was absolutely delighted to see a very healthy profusion of these beauties.

211022 earthstars (3)

There were at least 40, with more still emerging from their ‘shells’. I am, of course, referring to the fungi for which this blog is named, the Earthstars, in this case Collared earthstars (Geastrum triplex).

211022 earthstars (4) 211022 earthstars (5)

Finding tongues in trees

08 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by sconzani in fungi, trees

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Alder cones, Alder tongue, British fungi, fungi on Alder cones, Taphrina alni

‘And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.’
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, scene I, lines 15-17

When the Duke in As You Like It referred to finding tongues in trees, I think Shakespeare was probably thinking more of the whispers of rustling leaves that finding Alder tongue fungi on the cones of Alder trees, but I like the quote and the way Shakespeare highlights how eloquently Nature speaks to so many of us. And it fits well with all the Alder tongues (Taphrina alni) I’ve been finding lately.

Puffballs

02 Saturday Oct 2021

Posted by sconzani in fungi

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

British fungi, Common puffball, fungus, Lycoperdon perlatum, puffball, UK Fungi Day

Happy UK Fungi Day 2021! We have heavy rain here and it’s forecast to last all day. Being something of a wet weather wimp, I’m not heading out on a fungi hunt so have only some puffballs to offer.

But I shouldn’t say ‘only’, as puffballs are fungi that many people will be able to find for themselves, and I think they’re rather stunning. Just look at their amazing textured surface, especially on the smallest, youngest specimen, above left. Though that looks quite spiny to me, I think these are all Common puffballs (Lycoperdon perlatum), as opposed to Spiny puffballs (Lycoperdon echinatum).

211002 common puffball (3)

Puffballs lack gills from which to release their spores; instead, their surface is covered with tiny pores through which spores can be released to the wind. Of course, if the surface becomes damaged and rips open, as in my final photo, spores can be released en masse, and we might expect to see even more of these sculptural beauties in the future.

211002 common puffball (4)

Those eyelashes

24 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by sconzani in autumn, fungi

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

#FungiFriday, British fungi, Eyelash fungi, Scutellinia fungi, Scutellinia species

Fluttering at me from a log in the woodland … well, not really, but you get the picture. It’s always a delight to spot one of the Eyelashes, the Scutellinia species of fungi.

210924 eyelash fungi

Earthballs

17 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by sconzani in autumn, fungi

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

British fungi, Common earthball, earthball, Scleroderma citrinum

It’s #FungiFriday, and even the earthballs are smiling!

Though there are several species of earthball fungi in Britain, I’m fairly sure these are Common earthballs (Scleroderma citrinum), as they were found in the typical habitat of ‘acid soils with deciduous trees, usually Oak, Beech or birches’ (Collins Complete Guide to British Mushrooms & Toadstools, p.278).

Chicken-of-the-woods

10 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by sconzani in fungi

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

bracket fungi, British fungi, Chicken-of-the-woods, Laetiporus sulphurous

This glorious cascade of brackets was a delightful surprise during a recent woodland meander.

This is the wonderfully named Chicken-of-the-woods (Laetiporus sulphurous), which apparently tastes like chicken, hence the name. However, as Pat O’Reilly writes in Fascinated by Fungi: ‘Young caps taste rather like chicken; old ones taste more like the wood!’ and ‘Never eat Chicken of the Woods gathered from Yews’ because, of course, almost every part of the Yew is poisonous.

210910 chicken-of-the-woods (3)

I’ve only seen these bright yellow-and-orange brackets growing on Oak, though they can also be found on Beech and Sweet chestnut as well as Yew. They are large, growing up to 40cm across, with a velvety upper surface and pores below.

Persistent waxcaps

27 Friday Aug 2021

Posted by sconzani in fungi

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

British fungi, British waxcaps, Hygrocybe acutoconica, Persistent waxcap, waxcap fungi, waxcaps

I used to love finding waxcaps in the grounds of my local cemetery when I lived in Cardiff but hardly see any in my current area. So, it was a delight to spot these Persistent waxcaps (Hygrocybe acutoconica) in one of the paddocks at Cosmeston earlier this week.

210827 persistent waxcap (1)

Their caps range in shade from yellow to orange and, though initially moist like most waxcaps, they soon dry out and often crack as they expand, especially when growing in an exposed location. The caps start off conical (hence the epithet acutoconica), which means these fungi can sometimes be confused with other species like the Blackening waxcap (Hygrocybe conica), but these Persistent caps don’t blacken.

210827 persistent waxcap (2)

The gills and stem of this fungus also range in colour from yellow to orange, and the stem sometimes looks grooved and fibrous.

210827 persistent waxcap (3)

Persistent waxcaps are most often found in unfertilised grasslands, particularly on calcareous soils, and can also pop up on sandy soils and even amongst sand dunes.

A green result

30 Friday Jul 2021

Posted by sconzani in fungi

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

British fungi, elfcup fungi, Elfcups, Green elfcup, green stain on wood

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? A couple of months ago I found this small bit of wood with tell-tale green colouring so secreted it in a damp place in the woodland.

210730 green elfcup (1)

When I checked it yesterday, result! These are Green elfcups, still tiny but hopefully there will be more next time I look as they usually fruit in the autumn.

210730 green elfcup (2)

Wolf’s milk update

02 Friday Jul 2021

Posted by sconzani in fungi

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

British slime moulds, Lycogala slime mould, Lycogala terrestre, slime mould

You might remember that on 18 June I blogged about Wolf’s milk, one of the Lycogala species of slime moulds, and noted that I couldn’t positively identify it until I saw the colour of its spores. Well, I’ve been back to recheck these slime balls. They took a bit of finding, as the dense tree canopy of the woodland makes the area quite dark and their change of colour as the slime balls have matured made them blend in with the log they were growing on, as you can see below.

210702 Lycogala terrestre (1)

The good news is that I have been able to identify them. I ‘popped’ one – not a bad thing for the slime as this released its spores for distribution – and found the spore colour to have a pinkish hue, which confirmed the species as Lycogala terrestre.

210702 Lycogala terrestre (2)

Wolf’s milk

18 Friday Jun 2021

Posted by sconzani in fungi

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Lycogala slime mould, Lycogala sp., slime mould, Wolf's milk

Two species of the slime mould Lycogala can be found in Britain, Lycogala epidendrum and Lycogala terrestre, and it’s only possible to distinguish one from the other by checking the colour of their spores, grey and pink respectively. To do that I’d need to revisit these lovely globules of Lycogala in a week or so – I’ll try to remember, and update this post accordingly.

210618 wolfs milk

Both Lycogala species are commonly known as Wolf’s milk, though I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps someone thought the orange-pink substance they secrete when poked resembled the milk of wolves? North American’s apparently call it Toothpaste slime, which makes me glad I don’t use their brands of toothpaste!