09 Tuesday Nov 2021
Posted in fungi
I think I’m developing an obsession with these beautiful fungi, Helvella crispa, commonly known as White saddles.
These photos were taken during last week’s cemetery meander but I’ve also found a large group of these fungi recently in the woodland at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park.
Perhaps it’s my imagination, but I fancy I can make out forms, spooky, ghostly creatures that have emerged from the earth.
05 Friday Nov 2021
Growing on the ground under a large old beech tree is not where I’d usually expect to see ‘ears’ but there they were. Admittedly, I did initially think these were a species of cup fungus, and it wasn’t until I was looking more closely at my photos that I realised the cups had a split down the side, which indicates they are not cups but ‘ears’, one of the Otidea species.
There are several species of Otidea growing in Britain: the two most common in Wales are Hare’s ear (Otidea onotica) and Tan ear (Otidea alutacea) but neither have been recorded in the Cardiff area. Though my finds look a little different from the usual Hare’s ear fungi, I suspect that, as mine were growing under Beech, they probably are Hare’s ears but they really need microscopic analysis to be certain.
Despite not being able to positively identify these ‘ears’, I was absolutely delighted to have my first sighting of them, though it did make me wish my knees were younger and I was better able to get down on the ground to properly enjoy and photograph them!
29 Friday Oct 2021
Fungi come in an amazing variety of forms and colours. Here’s one I found for the first time a week or so ago.
You’re probably familiar with Sycamore tarspot (Rhytisma acerinum), which makes black spots on the leaves of Sycamore trees. Well, this is superficially similar, though not as widely recorded in Britain: it’s Dothidella ulmi, a fungus that develops under the epidermis of leaves on Elm trees, in this case Wych elm, then erupts in a mass of grey blisters.
22 Friday Oct 2021
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.
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.
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).
08 Friday Oct 2021
‘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.
02 Saturday Oct 2021
Posted in fungi
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).
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.
24 Friday Sep 2021
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.
17 Friday Sep 2021
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).
10 Friday Sep 2021
Posted in fungi
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.
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.
27 Friday Aug 2021
Posted in fungi
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.
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.
The gills and stem of this fungus also range in colour from yellow to orange, and the stem sometimes looks grooved and fibrous.
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.
earthstar 
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