Category Archives: fungi

108/365 Smut in Bute Park

18 Thursday Apr 2019

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One of my Facebook friends recently made the comment that you can never have too much smut so I immediately thought of him when I saw how much smut was to be found in Cardiff’s Bute Park this afternoon.

Before you think this blog is descending rapidly towards the gutter, let me quickly say that the smut to which I am referring is Microbotryum silenes-dioicae, a smut that occurs on the anthers of Red campion (Silene dioica) flowers. It’s a type of fungus that produces brown, powdery spores so it’s very easy to spot, as you can see below – the photo on the left shows a normal Red campion flower, the flowers on the right are smutty.

86/365 In west paddock

27 Wednesday Mar 2019

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Today I went to Cosmeston for the first time in a few weeks and I was delighted to find its west paddock tinged a delicate shade of purple from all the violets currently in flower. I don’t remember it being so obvious in previous years. Along the edges of the paddock, primroses were in bloom, adding their soft buttery yellow to the colour mix.

While looking more closely at the flowers, I noticed tiny circles of red dotting the soil – a species of Scutellinia fungi I’m guessing, but working out which species requires some serious microscope work.

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And then along flew my first Small tortoiseshell butterfly of the year to add its vibrant hues to the kaleidoscope of colour in the paddock. Just perfect!

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72/365 Alexanders rust

13 Wednesday Mar 2019

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190313 alexanders rust

We had such a mild winter this year that the Alexanders plants (Smyrnium olusatrum) that grow well along the coastal path from Penarth to Lavernock only died down for a few short weeks, then their vibrant green once again began to appear and grow up at their usual rapid pace. And with the leaves almost immediately came the rust that loves these plants, Alexanders rust (Puccinia smyrnii). It is obviously immune to bad weather, as it has continued to flourish right through the occasional frosts and heavy downpours that were about the worst weather winter produced this year.

70/365 Like orange teardrops

11 Monday Mar 2019

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According to Pat O’Reilly’s brilliant First Nature website, the scientific name for Common jellyspot, which is Dacrymyces stillatus, is ‘named from Dacry- meaning a tear (as in weeping) and –myces meaning fungus, while the specific epithet stillatus means poured or dripped. Hence Dacrymyces stillatus means teardrop-like fungi that look as though they have dripped on to the substrate.’ In this particular case the substrate is a series of fence posts at Cosmeston, where I’ve seen this jellyspot growing for several months now.

50/365 Conifer mazegill

19 Tuesday Feb 2019

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I first found this fungus last week and went back today to get more photos. It had me flummoxed at first – it looked mazegill-ish but is growing on a handrail so I couldn’t identify the wood and couldn’t match the fungus to anything in my books. Fortunately, there are some extremely knowledgeable fungi experts around who are generous with their assistance and one in particular, Andy Overall, was able to identify this from my photos.

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This is Conifer mazegill – its scientific name is a bit of a mouthful, Gloeophyllum sepiarium – and it’s a wood-rotter, feasting, as the name implies, on the dead wood of conifers.

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The examples I’ve found are very young and don’t look anything like the stiff brackets they will grow in to, though the Mushroom Expert website has one image of this early stage, and a lot more information if you’re interested.

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26/365 Velvet shanks

26 Saturday Jan 2019

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These honey-coloured mushrooms, Velvet shanks (Flammulina velutipes), can most often be found growing in the cold days of winter in groups on hardwood trees, which is where I found these beauties this morning, sprouting out of what remained of a large roadside tree that had been chopped off at a height of about four feet. Fungi expert Pat O’Reilly explains the origin of the scientific name on his First Nature website: ‘… Flammulina is a reference to the orange caps, which shine like “little flames” in the winter sunshine … [and] velutipes means “with velvet legs’’, and that’s exactly what the stems of these winter fungi look and feel like.’

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18/365 A slimy Friday

18 Friday Jan 2019

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It’s been wintery today, with a chill wind and frequent showers, but I rugged up and headed out for a stomp for the air and exercise. Cosmeston was almost empty of people and dogs, something unheard of on warmer days, and any wildlife was also keeping well under cover. So, I enjoyed a bimble in Cogan Wood, picking up logs, looking for insects and fungi, and I found this interesting slime mould growing on an ivy leaf.

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Everything has beauty

31 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in fungi, nature, winter

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It was Confucius, I believe, who said ‘Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it’. Well, today, on the last day of my #7DaysofWildChristmas challenge and the last day of 2018, I bring you incontrovertible proof that beauty can be found anywhere. And I’m fairly positive not many people would have spotted this particular piece of gorgeousness.

Can you guess what it is?

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Need a clue? I was walking through the meadows at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park when I spotted this in the grass.

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It’s … mould growing on rabbit pooh! I presume the liquid droplets are dew rather than something that’s been produced by the mould … or the pooh, but I may be wrong about that. I think you will agree, however, that this is truly a beautiful thing to behold.

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Under the log

29 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by in fungi, insects, molluscs, nature, slugs, winter

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The weather was back to grey and drizzly again today so I donned my wet weather gear and headed to Cogan Wood to spend part of day 5 of my #7DaysofWildChristmas challenge turning over a few rotten logs and branches. And what did I find lurking there?

Woodlice; snails both long and rotund; earthworms; luscious balls of orange slime; tiny globular balls that looked like the eggs of something or other; pale little lumps of White or Crystal brain fungi; slugs brown and black; a stripey legged Harvestman; miniscule white mushrooms adorned with drops of water; a young centipede or millipede – I can never be quite sure which is which; dark little cup fungi, black with olive rims (Catinella olivacea) – very pleased with that find; and various other things, the photographs of which were either out of focus or too grainy due to the poor light conditions in the woodland. There’s nothing quite like getting wild and muddy – it was fun!

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