Category Archives: fungi

Rust: Puccinia convolvuli

07 Friday Aug 2026

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It’s been a while since I found a new rust, or any type of fungi at all, so this one came as a nice surprise when I was checking bindweed leaves for leafmines of the tiny moth Bedellia somnulentella.

At first glance you might not realise this was a rust fungus as its effects simply looked like blotches on the upper surface of the leaf.

However, if you looked on the underside of the leaf, you could see the blotches were covered with tiny pustules, the fungus’s aecia from which spores are released.

As many rust fungi are plant specific, this was a relatively easy one to identify – it’s Puccinia convolvuli. Though I haven’t noticed it before when checking bindweed leaves, I was still surprised to learn that this is a relatively rare fungus in Britain, having only been discovered here in 2009 and not having spread far since that initial discovery. You can read more on this blog by Jeremy Bartlett, a Norfolk-based naturalist who I follow on social media.

Dead man’s fingers

03 Friday Jul 2026

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything fungi-related so I was quite pleased to spot these examples around a tree stump near a local railway bridge, a stump that was deliberately cut down some time ago and had poison plugs hammered into the stump to try to prevent regrowth.

The poison may have stopped the tree re-growing but it certainly hasn’t deterred the fungi. In fact, these are probably the healthiest examples of Dead man’s fingers (Xylaria polymorpha) that I’ve ever seen. I think you can see how they got their name – they really do look like blackened fingers reaching up from under the earth!

In Fascinated by Fungi, Pat O’Reilly explains that this is a species of flask fungus, a type of ascomycete that releases spores from the exterior surface of its relatively large fruiting body – another example is King Alfred’s cakes (Daldinia concentrica). The fruiting bodies of Dead man’s fingers can grow up to 8cm tall, are generally club-shaped, and grow from buried hardwood, usually Beech, though if I recall correctly, this particular stump was a Field maple.

Fan-like fungi

13 Friday Feb 2026

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I found these Split gill fungi (Schizophyllum commune) last November but had so many other things to share at that point that these didn’t make the cut.

I’d found the same species on another tree in this Cardiff Park once before but this fallen Oak and the huge colony of Split gill fungi growing on it were more than I’d ever seen before. It’s a fungus that always intrigues me, with its bland furry upper side that gives no hint of the stunning sculptural structure beneath.

Good weather for Tripe

06 Friday Feb 2026

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Mist, rain, drizzle, fog, mizzle … almost every single day this year our weather has been some variation or other of wet. Some might say this is good weather for ducks, though most of the ducks I see look as miserable in the rain as most of the people I see.

This is, however, good weather for a lot of fungi and, during a recent walk, I noticed how lush and plump this Tripe fungus (Auricularia mesenterica) was looking.

Birch polypore

30 Friday Jan 2026

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It’s been a very long time since I blogged about this fascinating fungus, Birch polypore (Piptoporus betulinus), also known as Razorstrop fungus, because, as I explained in An essential piece of traveller’s kit (8 February 2016), barbers once used the hard surface of this fungus to sharpen their cut-throat razors.

Birch polypore is a rotter, literally; its powers of decomposition are strong, mostly acting on the wood of dead Birches (Betulinus species) but, as Pat O’Reilly writes in Fascinated by Fungi, it may also ‘be parasitic on weakened birches’. I found this lovely specimen feeding on a dead Birch in a Cardiff park earlier this week.

Candlesnuff

16 Friday Jan 2026

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A simple scene from the woodland floor is the subject of today’s post, a miniature landscape painted by Nature of a sheltered spot where the fallen leaves haven’t yet disintegrated into mush and the tiny black-and-white fingers of Candlesnuff fungi have emerged from a small branch to reach up as far as they can so that their spores can be dispersed amongst the trees. It’s a scene we have probably all walked past and ignored, and yet it’s really quite beautiful if we take the time to look.

Q is for Quercus

22 Monday Dec 2025

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As I know I’ve stated on this blog many times before, the various species of Oak tree (Quercus species) play host to a huge number of organisms of many types, forms, and colours. These are some I’ve been lucky to see this year: two species of fungus, the Oak mazegill (21 November) and Black bulgur (Fungi: Black bulgar, 24 October); several species of bug that have all featured in this update already (B is for bugs and beetles) but are worth another mention as they spend all or most of their lives on Oak trees: Cyllecoris histrionius, adult and nymph (12 May), Rhabdomiris striatellus (10 June), and Bug: Megacoelum infusum (12 September).

I also managed to find several Common quaker (Orthosia cerasi) caterpillars on a single Oak (included in Cool cats, 2, 5 June); the gorgeous lacewing shown above that has since been verified as Hemerobius micans and is found especially on mature oaks (Two lacewings, 4 September); the folded-over Oak leaf lobes created by a gall midge (Galls: Macrodiplosis pustularis, 2 June); and the stunning little Acorn weevil, shown below, that lives in Oak trees and lays its eggs inside acorns (Weevil: Curculio glandium, 1 August).

N is for nest

19 Friday Dec 2025

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Nest: noun; a structure built by birds or insects to leave their eggs in to develop, and by some other animals to give birth or live in (Cambridge Dictionary).

In January, I spotted a Nuthatch excavating a hole in a tree in which to make its nest (Nest excavation, 25 January), though on subsequent visits the hole seemed to have been abandoned.

At the end of March, during one of my local meanders, the screeching of several Rooks drew my eyes upwards to discover several nests, with adults feeding well grown but ever hungry chicks (A new rookery, 2 April).

When is a nest not a nest? Check out the Cyathus striatus fungi I wrote about at the end of January (Fluted bird’s nest fungi, 31 January).

E is for earthstar, the eponymous fungus

10 Wednesday Dec 2025

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I just checked – I haven’t posted any photos of earthstars since December 2023. As they were the inspiration for the name of this blog (though the name is also meant to encompass all the flora and fauna that are the environmental stars on this amazing Earth), I really think they should feature here at least once a year.

These particular Collared earthstars (Geastrum triplex) were photographed in both the old and new sections of Cardiff’s Cathays Cemetery last week.