Category Archives: fungi

Split gill fungi

30 Saturday Nov 2024

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I don’t usually reference Wikipedia in my blogs but I rather like their description of today’s fungus: ‘The mushroom resembles undulating waves of tightly packed corals or a loose Chinese fan.’

241130 split gill fungi (1)

This is Split gill fungus (Schizophyllum commune), a species I’ve only seen once before, back in 2016, so I was both amazed and captivated when I found these growing on a huge old Oak tree in Cardiff’s Heath Park yesterday. From above, this fungus is a round hairy mass that doesn’t really look like a fungus at all. The magic happens when you look at the underside of the cap and see the stunning sculptural nature of the mushroom’s gills.

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Wrinkled peach

29 Friday Nov 2024

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I was struggling to think of what I would blog about today so, for my daily walk, I headed to an area where I thought I should be able to find some fungi. And so it proved. In fact, much to my surprise and delight, I found today’s subject first, then went on to find two other relative rarities at other sites during my meander. This was a very good day for fungi!

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Today’s fungus is Wrinkled peach (Rhodotus palmatus), still beautiful even though the five specimens I found were all a little past their best. They are perfectly named: their pale pinkish peachy colour is unmistakeable, as is the crinkled skin on their caps.

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And, as they grow exclusively on Elm trees, which have been devastated by Dutch elm disease, these fungi are now quite a rarity so I was particularly lucky to spot them.

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Ballerinas and friends

22 Friday Nov 2024

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I do like to take my friends walking in all the best places so, when I caught up with my friend Sharon last week (Hi, Shar!), part of our time was spent wandering around Cardiff’s Cathays Cemetery. This might sound a bit morbid but the cemetery is one of the best places I know for fungi. Here are some of the delights we found …

241122 ballerina waxcap

My first Pink (Ballerina) waxcaps (Porpolomopsis calyptriformis) of the year

241122 snowy waxcap

And also my first Snowy waxcaps (Cuphophyllus virgineus)

241122 smoky spindles

There were several clumps of Smoky spindles (Clavaria fumosa), most just past their best

241122 meadow coral

And this clump of Meadow coral (Clavulinopsis corniculata) was a lovely find.

Outstanding in their field

15 Friday Nov 2024

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At well over 12 inches, these must be the tallest Shaggy inkcaps (Coprinus comatus) I’ve ever seen, spotted growing in a nearby coastal field earlier this week. And just this morning, on social media, I read a post by a ranger at RSPB Lakenheath Fen saying he’d also seen his biggest there this week. Something about this year’s climatic conditions must be suiting them.

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More grassland gems

08 Friday Nov 2024

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After a week when our skies have been grey and damp and low-cloudy due to something the weather forecasters have labelled ‘anti-cyclonic gloom’, and when voters’ choices have darkened the world around us even more, I feel the need for some colour for fungi Friday. So, here are more lovely waxcaps, photographed during another recent cemetery visit and at my local country park.

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Inkcaps and bonnets

25 Friday Oct 2024

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For Fungi Friday, here are just a couple of the little flocks of fungi I’ve found during recent walks hither and yon.

241025 inkcaps

These, I think, are Common inkcaps (Coprinopsis atramentaria) that had sprung up beneath the trees near the Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay. There one day, gone the next, as is usual with these transient fungi.

241025 clustered bonnet

And, as they were growing from an old fallen Oak tree in Cosmeston’s Cogan Wood, I think these are the appropriately name Clustered bonnet, also known as Oak bonnet, (Mycena inclinata).

Rust: Puccinia malvacearum

11 Friday Oct 2024

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I was photographing the flowers of a roadside Tree mallow for a mid-autumn wildflowers-in-bloom blog that will be publishing this coming Sunday when I noticed the subject of today’s blog post, this new-to-me rust, Puccinia malvacearum. Its common names, Mallow rust and Hollyhock rust, provide the perfect indication for which plants are host to this fungus.

241011 Puccinia malvacearum (1)

As is typical with rusts, this species had created yellow-orange spots on the upper surface of the leaves and brownish lumpy pustules on the lower surface and on the plant’s stems. The rust would eventually reduce the plant’s vigour, leading to stunted growth and leaf loss, though, as this particular plant was growing in a location very likely to be mown regularly by council workers, the plant will probably be cut down long before it could succumb to the rust’s damage.

241011 Puccinia malvacearum (2)

Scarlet waxcaps

04 Friday Oct 2024

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These Scarlet waxcaps (Hygrocybe coccinea) are the little gems I was hoping to find during my last visit to Cardiff’s Cathays Cemetery a couple of weeks ago but they hadn’t yet popped their little gorgeous heads up through the mossy grass.

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This week some had, though many more were still just tiny scarlet bumps about to burst through.

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Sadly, Cardiff Council workers were in the middle of cutting the grass at the cemetery so the chances of these, and any other waxcaps I didn’t manage to spot, surviving are about zero.

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The cemetery is a SSSI precisely because of its rare waxcaps, and I know from speaking to a local ecologist that the Council has been given information on how they should be managing the cemetery to conserve and enhance the waxcap population. Sadly, like so many councils in the UK, they choose to destroy the environment rather than protect it.

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Waxcap watch

20 Friday Sep 2024

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With the recent launch of its campaign #WaxcapWatch, the environment organisation Plantlife is asking for the public’s help to record waxcap fungi this autumn. As they state on their website:

Britain is home to some of the most important waxcap grasslands in the world. However many species are becoming rare and declining; they need identifying and protecting.

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You don’t need to be a fungi expert to help out. The webpage provides all the instructions you need, including a link to an app you can use to record your finds, and a handy video on how to use the app. So, no excuses! Waxcaps are some of our most beautiful fungi and seeing these little gems growing in a field is a truly wonderful experience.

240920 parrot waxcaps (2)

The waxcaps shown here are all Parrot waxcaps (Gliophorus psittacinus), and were found during a wander around one of Cardiff’s old cemeteries last week.

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