Tag Archives: Lachnum virgineum

Friday night discos

30 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by in autumn, fungi, nature

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Discos seem appropriate for a Friday night or, rather, they would have in the 1960s and ’70s. But my discos don’t involve a multi-colour dance floor or a flashing-ball light or John Travolta-style dancing – my discos are fungi. Getting down and dirty in Cogan Wood earlier this week, selectively picking up small logs of rotting wood for inspection, I found two of these little beauties.

181130 snowy discoSnowy disco (Lachnum virgineum)

181130 lemon discoLemon disco (Bisporella citrina)

Disclaimer: Fungi are notoriously difficult to identify and one thing I’ve learnt from dipping my toes into the mycological world is that one should always confirm one’s identification, especially of minute fungi like these, by microscopic examination. I have not done that so my IDs are not confirmed, just quite likely.

Fungi Friday: Disco lights

13 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by in fungi, nature

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There are 22 species of fungi called disco, according to the British Mycological Society’s list of English Names for Fungi 2016, and they have some delightful names, mostly referring to what they grow on, I think: Larch, Conifer, Larch canker, Rush, Heath sedge, Mast, Juniper, Fir and, my personal favourite, Hairy Nuts Disco!

170113 Bisporella citrina Lemon Disco.jpg

So far I’ve only found two. My excuse is that they’re tiny, only a few millimetres across, so they’re difficult to spot, and many are quite rare. This first one is probably Lemon Disco (Bisporella citrina), and is actually one of the more common discos. It’s a wood-rotter that can be found growing – often in the thousands – on decaying deciduous trees, particularly oak.

This second fungus may be Snowy disco (Lachnum virgineum) – like so many fungi, it requires microscopic examination for a definite ID, and I haven’t reached that level in my mycological evolution … yet! Snowy disco also grows on dead and decaying wood, and is said to be frequent, though I’ve only found it once in 18 months of foraying.