Cordyceps fungus

30 Friday Aug 2024

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British fungi, Cordyceps, Cordyceps fungus on insect, fungus infecting insect

It was tiny and, at first glance, I thought it was one of those madly shaped egg sacks created by sputnik spiders (see The sputnik spider, 6 July 2017), but no. This is my first ever Cordyceps fungus, which is erupting from the body of an insect.

240830 cordyceps fungus (2)

In his publication Fascinated by Fungi, author Pat O’Reilly explains: ‘The Cordyceps mycelium colonises the living insect and mummifies it, keeping it alive just long enough to generate the biomass necessary to produce another Cordyceps … fruitbody.’ I discovered a very similar example to my find, with an excellent detailed explanation of the process, on the Project Noah website here.

240830 cordyceps fungus (1)

Scutellinia

15 Friday Mar 2024

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British fungi, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Eyelash fungi, Scutellinia, Scutellinia fungi

I’ve never been able to work out which of the Scutellinia species the Eyelash fungi at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park belong to but it’s always a joy to spot these tiny orange-red gems in the grass.

240315 scutellinia

Floating fungi

23 Friday Feb 2024

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British fungi, Flammulina velutipes, Velvet shanks

Can you see it?

240223 velvet shanks (1)

I don’t mean the rubbish – sadly, this is very typical of what comes floating down the River Ely in to Cardiff Bay and on out to the Bristol Channel, and thence to the Irish Sea. I’m talking about the two blobs of orange on the large log.

240223 velvet shanks (2)

Obviously I couldn’t get very close to these fungi but they are distinctive enough to identify with confidence – these are Velvet shanks (Flammulina velutipes). I can’t help but wonder where they will end up. It’s certainly a perfect example of how easily flora and fauna can spread around the country, the globe.

240223 velvet shanks (3)

Stump puffballs

09 Friday Feb 2024

Posted by sconzani in fungi, winter

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British fungi, Lycoperdon pyriforme, puffballs, Stump puffballs

I haven’t found much fungi lately so it was nice, during a walk earlier this week, to spot this little colony of Stump puffballs (Lycoperdon pyriforme).

I had a chuckle at this explanation of its scientific name from the First Nature website:

The genus name Lycoperdon literally means ‘wolf’s flatulence’ and just begs the question who got close enough to a wolf and stayed there long enough to become an expert on such matters. For most of us, surely such an odour cannot be a practical diagnostic feature for identifying the Stump Puffball, Lycoperdon pyriforme.
Nothing at all to do with funeral pyres, the specific epithet pyriforme comes from Latin and simply means pear shaped.

Three fungi on Ash keys

12 Friday Jan 2024

Posted by sconzani in fungi, winter

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Ash key fungi, British fungi, Diaporthe samaricola, Flagelloscypha minutissima, fungi on Ash keys, Neosetophoma samarorum

When I’ve searched Ash keys (seed pods) previously for fungi, I’ve found the two most common, which are Diaporthe samaricola (the small black dots on the upper, seed portion of the ash key, in the image on the right below) and Neosetophoma samarorum (the much smaller, black speckles on the lower, wing part of the key, in the same image) (see Ash key fungi, January 2021).

During recent checks, however, I found a third fungus, the three all flourishing quite happily side by side on one set of keys. The third fungus is white, slightly woolly and minute, and it might be something like Flagelloscypha minutissima, but without examining it and its spores under a microscope (which I don’t have) I can’t be sure.

Fungi keep fighting back

05 Friday Jan 2024

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British fungi, fungi sprouting from post, Oyster mushrooms

240105 oysters (2) Back in October, I posted about two species of fungi colonising human-built structures, Jelly ear growing on the painted sides of a PortaCabin and an unidentified wood-loving species sprouting from the boardwalk railing at Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve (Fungi fight back, 27 October 2023).

During one of my circuits of Cardiff Bay in December, I found another example of fungi fighting back, these lush Oyster mushrooms on a finger post alongside the path to the Bay Barrage.

240105 oysters (1)

E is for earthstar

10 Sunday Dec 2023

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British fungi, collared earthstar, earthstar, fungus, Geastrum triplex

I have never seen as many earthstars as I did during a visit to a Cardiff Cemetery a few weeks ago. There must have been over 50 Collared earthstars (Geastrum triplex) growing under the pine trees at the entrance to the cemetery, a location where I’ve never before seen them despite many visits over several years, so it was a very special sight indeed. And as these are the fungi that originally inspired the name of this blog, I felt I had to include them in this end-of-year countdown.

231210 earthstars

Snowy disco

01 Friday Dec 2023

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British fungi, Lachnum virgineum, Snowy disco, white cup fungi, white fungi, woodland fungi

Though many parts of Britain are currently revelling in their first snowfalls of the winter, here in my part of south Wales the white of a crisp frost is as close as we’ve got to that beauty and the only snow of note is a fungus, with the very appropriate name of Snowy disco (Lachnum virgineum).

231201 snowy disco (1)

Though there are other white cup-shaped fungi, this one can be distinguished by the hairiness of its short stem and the underside of the cup. That hairiness is also the reason you often see these tiny cups with miniscule droplets of water attached – the water ‘sticks’ to the hairs. Though these fungi are described as widespread and common, I don’t see them very often and, in fact, I only found these because I was picking up small logs in a woodland to check for any invertebrates beneath them. The Snowy disco was a very nice bonus!

231201 snowy disco (2)

Lumpy brackets

17 Friday Nov 2023

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bracket fungi, British fungi, Lumpy bracket, Trametes gibbosa, white bracket fungus

How to identify Lumpy brackets (Trametes gibbosa) (courtesy of the First Nature website):
– found on most kinds of hardwood trees but most commonly on Beech (these were on Beech)
– the pale upper surface is often discoloured by green algae, particularly away from the edges
– the pores are slot-like, rather than round or oval as found on other whitish Trametes
I found this impressive array of Lumpy brackets on a huge fallen Beech in Cardiff’s Heath Park.

A mess of Hare’s-foot fungi

14 Tuesday Nov 2023

Posted by sconzani in fungi

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British fungi, Coprinopsis lagopus, fungi in leaf litter, Hare's-foot, Hare's-foot inkcap, inkcaps, leaf litter

When I take photos of fungi, I often try to tidy up the scene a little first, plucking away stray twigs or flattening with my shoe the grass that’s obscuring the view of the actual fungi. In this particular situation, that was not possible, partly because I couldn’t get any closer to the fungi (which were on private land) and partly because, even if I could’ve moved closer, there was simply too much vegetation to remove without damaging their fragile forms. So, I decided to present these Hare’s-foot inkcaps (Coprinopsis lagopus) as they really were, small and elegant black-and-white parasols partially obscured amidst a colourful mess of small branches and leaf litter. A very autumnal scene.