Category Archives: fungi

Fungi at Cosmeston

20 Friday Oct 2023

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After a few wet, grey and gusty days being battered by Storm Babet, I thought we could do with some Friday night bright colour so here are some recent fungi finds from Cosmeston Lakes Country Park.

231020 cosmeston fungi (2)

The fungi above are Persistent waxcap (Hygrocybe acutoconica), the yellow beauties at the top above, and Mousepee pinkgill (Entoloma incanum), the lovely little green mushroom with the wonderful name. And, below, these are all Honey waxcaps (Hygrocybe reidii), in various stages of development.

231020 cosmeston fungi (1)

Hygrocybe acutoconica

18 Friday Aug 2023

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Here’s another sign that autumn’s come early this year. In previous years I’ve not seen these waxcaps in my area until very late September, mostly during October, but this year they’re fruiting now, at least a month earlier than usual.

230818 Hygrocybe acutoconica (1)

These are Persistent waxcaps (Hygrocybe acutoconica). At first glance, with their conical caps and yellow-orange colour, they look very similar to Blackening waxcaps (Hygrocybe conica) but these don’t blacken. Persistents are the only waxcaps I find locally so it’s always a pleasure to see them, even if it does mean an early autumn.

230818 Hygrocybe acutoconica (2)

Dryad’s saddles

26 Friday May 2023

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What a cracking pair these were, both at least 30 cms across, fresh, boldly marked, rigid, an imposing sight!

230527 dryads saddle (1)

These are Dryad’s saddles (Polyporus squamosus), named for their saddle-like shape that one might, with a liberal sprinkling of imagination, visualise being used by the tree nymphs for their travels through their forest domain.

230527 dryads saddle (2)

Lycogala slime mould

19 Friday May 2023

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A train journey to a woodland in the next county earlier this week didn’t turn up the butterflies I was hoping for but I took consolation in the fact that I did see several things I don’t usually see locally. The first of these (the next couple of blogs will feature others) is usually found on rotting trees, so there’s no real reason I don’t see it in local woodlands – maybe it’s just a matter of timing. This is the enigmatic slime mould, Wolf’s milk. It could either be Lycogala epidendrum or L. terrestre but I won’t know which unless I revisit the site in a week or so. I explained the reason for this in two previous blogs (the initial find featured in Wolf’s milk, 16 June 2021, followed by the species reveal Wolf’s milk update, 2 July 2021).

230519 wolfs milk slime mould

Cups aplenty

12 Friday May 2023

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I was surprised but delighted to find this large colony of fungi on a pile of woodchips earlier this week. I think these are Cellar cups (Peziza cerea), as they fit perfectly with the description in my guide book:

Pale cup associated with limestone and often found growing out of mortar joints in buildings. Solitary or in small groups on woody debris, sandbags, limestone rubble, lime mortar and, sometimes, in damp cellars. Fruit bodies to 5cm across irregular cup-shaped, with the margin inrolled at first; inner surface pale ochre or yellowish brown with a smooth texture; outer surface concolorous and finely granular.

However, there are over 50 species of similar cups in Britain, many of which grow in similar locations, so microscopic examination is needed to be sure of identification.

Springtails and rust

21 Friday Apr 2023

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We’ve seen springtails and slime  a couple of times previously on this blog; now here’s the next instalment in the springtails series: springtails and rust fungi. I spotted this rust, Melampsora populnea, on Dog’s mercury (Merculiaris perennis) during yesterday’s walk. From the top of the leaf, all you see is a small area of puckering and some pale spots (near the hole on the leaf in the lower part of the first photograph below). But, on the underside of the leaf, it’s a different story, with the orange blobs typical of a rust fungus.

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At the time, I didn’t notice the tiny creatures munching on the fungus, neither the minuscule orange ones nor the relatively large pale orange ones. I presume the smaller ones are the offspring of the larger, which are definitely springtails, though I don’t know which species of Collembola these are, and my photos aren’t precise enough to identify them more precisely.

230421 rust and springtails

Orange mosscap

14 Friday Apr 2023

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When I first spotted this little orange tube poking out of the liverwort, mosses and a smattering of other tiny plants growing at the edge of a brick footpath, I wasn’t sure what it would develop into.

230414 orange mosscap (1)

Two days later all became clear. The tube had developed in to a lovely little fungus, an Orange mosscap (Rickenella fibula), and once I’d spotted that one, I found two more growing nearby. A delightful and unexpected surprise!

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New fungus: Linospora saligna

17 Friday Mar 2023

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Inspired by Gwent birder and naturalist Lee Gregory’s recent (3 March) first record for Wales of the fungus Linospora saligna, which looks like small dark speckles on dead Salix leaves, I went searching last Saturday morning in areas where I knew Willow trees grow. And I was a little surprised at how easy they were to find. I spotted the fungus at two locations along the path around Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park, and I’ve also since found it under Salix trees near Cardiff Bay’s Barrage. Although Lee’s record was a Welsh first and the NBN Atlas shows very few confirmed records for the rest of Britain, this is obviously another instance where a species is under-recorded, presumably because no one knows to look for it. I’m aware that Lee has already found several further records, and I will certainly continue to check for these speckled leaves wherever I see Willow trees.

230317 Linospora saligna

Wobbling no more

03 Friday Mar 2023

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I was hesitant with my identification of this fungus at first as previous examples I’ve seen have been yellow and jelly-like – poke them and they wobble.

Then I read, on the First Nature website, that ‘in dry weather this fungus becomes a hard orange bracket’. Also, this particular fungus feeds on other fungi, crusts in the Peniophora genus, and I couldn’t see any crusts on this branch. First Nature explains it again:

Very little or none of the Peniophora may be visible; this is because Tremella mesenterica feeds on the mycelium of the Peniophora fungus, and that can be deep inside the timber rather than on its surface. The fruiting body of the crust fungus does not even have to be present, therefore, and so it may look as though Yellow Brain is feeding directly on the host wood.

So, reassured by the website’s explanations, I believe I can confidently say this is Yellow brain fungus (Tremella mesenterica). Happy Fungi Friday!