21 Monday Nov 2022
Posted in fungi
I’ve blogged about Alder brackets before (Oozing brackets, November 2021; Fungi Friday: Alder bracket, December 2016; and 353/366 Old Alder brackets, December 2020), so today I’m just going to share a photo of my most recent find of the golden globules of Alder bracket goodness.
05 Friday Aug 2022
Posted in fungi
During Monday’s local meander I was hugely surprised to spot this humongous fungus, though I shouldn’t have been. Dryad’s saddle (Polyporus squamosus) is actually one of the first bracket fungi to appear each year, often sprouting its saddle-shaped ledges during the summer months when you’d least expect fungi to appear. This one was in a shady woodland, in an area less affected by the scorching sun that’s parched much of the land around here, so it was certainly a much more fungi-friendly location.
04 Friday Mar 2022
Posted in fungi
One positive from all the recent rain has been the rehydration of resident fungi. The last time I visited this dead tree its brackets were looking dry and shrivelled. Now, it’s like a flood of fungi, six feet of rippling rapids, a veritable cascade of colourful brackets.
26 Friday Nov 2021
It was the weak sunlight filtering through the almost-leafless overhead branches that drew my eyes to these fungi, their droplets of oozing liquid glinting as the light fell on them.
These are Alder brackets, Inonotus radiatus, a common species which, as you might expect from the name, is most often found on dead and dying Alder trees, though it does also grow on other species of hardwood trees.
According to the First Nature website, ‘Inonotus, the genus name of the Alder Bracket fungus, comes from ino– a prefix meaning fibrous, and ot which means an ear; the ending –us merely turns it into the form of a Latinised noun. The specific name radiatus comes from the Latin radi– meaning a ray, spoke or plate, and it is probably a reference to the radial wrinkles that are often evident on the upper surfaces of mature Alder Brackets.’
As you can see from my last photograph, these particular brackets were also home to several tiny larvae, perhaps of fungus gnats, though I can’t be sure of that.
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.
12 Friday Mar 2021
Tags
blackthorn, bracket fungi, British fungi, fungi on Blackthorn, Phellinus pomaceus, Prunus spinosa
Though I haven’t been able to verify its identification, I’m fairly sure today’s fungus is Phellinus pomaceus.
It’s a hard, woody bracket fungus that grows on Prunus tree species – in this case, it’s growing on Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa).
The NBN (National Biodiversity Network Trust) Atlas entry for this species (which also includes a map showing where in Britain the fungus has been recorded) says ‘It is not aggressively pathogenic but can cause considerable decay in trees suffering from other stress factors’, so you wouldn’t want to find it in a commercial fruit orchard. In my case, the fungi were only showing on two adjacent trees in a large copse of Blackthorn, and the trees looked quite elderly, so I don’t think it’s causing a problem.
19 Friday Feb 2021
Posted in fungi
I can never go past Turkey tail fungi (Trametes versicolor) without checking out their wonderful rings of colour.
These are neither as vibrant nor as varied as some I’ve seen but there is a hint of blue in one of those outer bands that doesn’t really show up well in my photos, as the light was very dull this day. I figured they were still worth sharing for Fungi Friday.
18 Friday Dec 2020
Back in December 2016, I blogged about Alder brackets (Fungi Friday: Alder bracket) and showed then the gorgeous golden globules of liquid that ooze out of them when they’re young. Today’s Alder brackets (scientific name Inonotus radiatus), found in the woodland at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, have a longer history.
There is certainly some newer growth amongst these brackets but most have been on this Alder tree a long time, as you can tell from the luxuriant growth of moss on the top bracket of the tier.
05 Saturday Oct 2019
Tags
#NationalFungiDay, bracket fungi, British fungi, Candlesnuff, fungus, National Fungi Day, oysterling fungi, Stump puffballs, Sulphur tuft, waxcaps
As today was National Fungi Day in Britain and we’ve had good quantities of the rain needed to stimulate fungal growth, I caught the train in to Cardiff today for a fungi foray around Heath Park and the new part of Cathays Cemetery. Here are some of the fungi I found …
22 Monday Oct 2018
Tags
autumn fungi, bracket fungi, dead tree full of fungi, fungi on tree, gilled fungi, Lycogala sp., slime mould
This tree may be dead but it’s teeming with life.
I’m sure it’s chock full of a huge variety of bugs and beetles, slugs and centipedes, and many other mini-beasties, but what caught my eye was the number of different types of fungi it was supporting.
As well as several species of gilled mushrooms, there were also various intriguing brackets, some oozing golden droplets, and a wonderfully vibrant orange Lycogala species of slime mould. Fungi may often be difficult to identify but they never cease to amaze me.
earthstar 
You must be logged in to post a comment.