Stropharia caerulea (Blue Roundhead)
Visited one of my local haunts University Park Nottingham. Always a pleasure to visit on a Sunday morning. The students still being in bed and most other visitors walk around the lake so I can usually roam around undisturbed.
The Blue Roundhead is an interesting fungus to see and photograph. The cap being between 3-8 cm across.
The most interesting feature is the umbo which is bluish-green to yellow-green. Slimy texture. The coloured umbo soon changes to a pale straw colour with only a hint of green. I came across this solitary fungus at the 'hint of green' stage. A little difficult to capture in a photograph but the colour can still be seen. Despite what you might think, it does not have a distinctive smell.
Its habitat is in grass/leaf litter - late Summer to Autumn. I found it during December 2014. It is not common and was my first sighting. Thanks to RR for confirming the identification from the photograph.
A cold day and it was nice to take refuge in my VW T25 for hot soup and flask of tea.
Below is a photograph showing the 'hint of green' on the cap umbo.
More photographs can be seen on Browse 5 at www.fungiworld.co.uk
Macrotyphula juncea (Slender Club)
One Sunday last November 2014, we set off in my VW Camper Van with the intention of visiting Stanage Edge in the Derbyshire Peak District to look for fungi in the woods below this huge Ledge.
Events turned out rather differently however. Only 20 minutes after setting out my fan belt flew off. This meant a call out to Green Flag, various fan belts tried for size and about 2 hours later after the problem was solved it was too late to make the trip and the light was poor too. I decided to stay closer to home and make the best of a bad day and visit Shipley Country Park which is lovely anyway and has good mixed woods.
There was not much to see and the light was fading fast but I decided to take a look under some yew and conifer trees adjacent to the remains of the Old Shipley Hall. Amongst leaf litter I spotted a huge group of tall club like fungi. Fascinating! So difficult to photograph too, as they resembled tall needles!
It seems, that if what I saw is Macrotyphula juncea, it has only ever been recorded twice in the county of Derbyshire. So a thrilling end to a disappointing and frustrating start to the day.
Here is the technical detail of Slender Club.
3-10 cm tall. 0.5-2mm wide. Sharp firstly and then blunt at maturity. Pale ochraceous and quite rigid but not brittle. Sour smell. Solitary or in huge groups in leaf litter in broad-leaved woods. Autumn. Seen occasionally but due to being difficult to find and see is probably an overlooked fungi.
Thanks to RE for his patience during the wait on the roadside for Green Flag, and for keeping me calm whilst driving and being towed 6 miles along a dual carriageway to get the new fan belt.
This full sized and more detailed photograph(s) can be seen on Browse 5 www.fungiworld.co.uk
Meadow Waxcap and The Donkey Sanctuary, Ottery St Mary, Devon
During October 2014 I returned again to one of my special haunts, Exmouth, Devon.
My previous visit during February 2014 was amidst a series of severe Winter Storms.
This time the weather was kinder, and was pleased to find the hotel roof fixed (no green covering on the
roof ), though I did spend time dodging heavy rain showers. The sand dunes washed away during February were still absent and the sea looked flat, compared to the swirling, high mass previously.
On my final day, I visited the Donkey Sanctuary at Ottery St. Mary, nr Sidmouth, Devon. Somewhere I'd been meaning to visit for years and also the prospect of lots of donkey dung and meadows enticed me as dung, meadows and straw are favourites for some fungi!
What a lovely place to visit. Enveloped in a peaceful aura, 500 donkeys are currently resident at this Sanctuary. It has its own hospital and vets to tend to these donkeys who are there to relax (after working jolly hard) for the rest of their lives. On a misty morning it looks quite biblical.
On a walk along a meadow running down to the coast I photographed a fungi that I thought at the time might be some sort of waxcap. The texture obviously felt and looked waxy. It was ochraceous and had particularly decurrent gills. Solitary in dewy grass. The cap being up to 8 cm and rather wavy at the margin edge.
On my return I identified it as Meadow Waxcap Hygrocybe pratensis.
I did also find a fungus growing in horse dung! Tan brown with a shiny cap and a long curved stem.
Todate, I've not yet managed to identify it.
These images can now be seen on www.fungiworld.co.uk on Browse 5.
Bovista paludosa (Fen Puffball)
I was recently sent a newspaper article reporting that the Bovista paludosa (Fen Puffball) a rare type of fungus has recently been found in Wales, UK. So I wanted to share this story.
Overall, only five examples have ever been recorded in the UK, thus making it one of the country's rarest fungi. This fungus was discovered during a survey into 200 of the country's most important bog and fen sites.
It is such a rare fungus that it is named on the "Natural Environment and Rural Communities list as a UK priority conservation species".
Characteristics:
Pear-shaped 1-8 cm across. White or light coloured. When young it has a smooth appearance, with maturity it can appear granular. A short stalk may be present. The fruit body at maturity may break away from the stalk which allows it to be blown around in the wind allowing the spores to be spread. The spores are purple - brown roughly spherical or ellipsoid in shape, and 3.5–7 μm in diameter.
Rhodotus palmatus _Wrinkled Peach Fungus
The Wrinkled Peach Fungus is a lovely little fungus. Its habitat is elm logs and due to the lack of mature elm trees since Dutch Elm disease is less common these days.
During the late Summer I visited Bunny Wood (Nottinghamshire) and came across a huge pile of stacked timber. I noticed right on the top of these logs a tiny little pink fungus. Luckily for me I was with a friend who was prepared to hoist me to the top of this pile of logs. Not an easy photo to take kneeling on top of wobbling logs, but well worth the effort as at that time I didn't know what I was photographing!
This little fungus is beautiful. The most delicate rosy pink and the cap, gills, and stem are both a gelatinous texture. The Wrinkled Peach I saw was a young one and the stem had blood red droplets oozing from it.
I would dearly love to see a mature example as the wrinkled texture becomes very apparent and is rather attractive.
The characteristics are as follows: Cap 5-10 cm across, convex then flattened. Margin in-rolled. Pink at first, turning later peach to apricot. Clearly wrinkled at maturity. Gelatinous. Gills are inter connected and more pale than the cap. On elm logs or beams, early autumn to winter. Rather rare.
Thank you very much to Howard Williams who helped with the identification.
This photograph can now be seen on Browse 5 at www.fungiworld.co.uk
Suillus flavidus, Trough of Bowland, Lancashire, June 2014
During June I spent a few days in Lancashire. I enjoyed a very hot spell of weather and as I spent most of my time at, or near the coast, there were no fungi to be seen. On the return journey home, we travelled through the Trough of Bowland. The Trough of Bowland is a valley and high pass reaching 968ft (295m) above sea level. It is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and separates Lancashire with West Riding in Yorkshire.
It was a delightful drive. We met very few cars and I saw, and managed to photograph my first ever Curlew.
I stopped at a copse of pine trees. The ground seemed more damp at this height and I photographed what I believe might be Suillus flavidus.
I say might, because I did not remove this fungus from the site to get an analysis as there were only two.
The features are: cap 2-6 cm across, straw-yellow to pale ochre. The pores are large and angular and deep yellow. The stem is straw yellow above a gelatinous, tawny coloured ring, and dull and buff below. This specimen definitely had a gelatinous ring. The habitat where it is to be found is in wet mossy areas usually with Scots pine. Late Summer. It is classed as uncommon and on the Red Data List as being seen as vulnerable.
These photographs can now be viewed on Browse 5, www.fungiworld.co.uk
Special thank you to RE for driving.
Exmouth February 2014 - Floods and Dung Cup (Peziza vesiculosa)
So much can change in four months. The previous October 2013 the weather was mild with wall to wall sunshine and with no inkling that Britain was soon to experience storm after storm (from December - February) each one being stronger and inflicting more damage. As it turned out the storms were the worst for 60 years.
Undeterred, I carried on with my plans to visit Exmouth to have a break and look for fungi.
Making plans was not easy. The train timetable meant very little. No advance bookings allowed either. Flooding at the Somerset Plains meant my train would get to Bristol and then take a detour around the London-Paddington route - a longer journey but I was prepared. A 5 am start to get the only train without a bus alternative.
The Cross Country train was only a quarter full. It seemed no-one wanted to travel. There were only a handful of people in my carriage - all a little subdued. I saw the flooding on the television - but nothing can prepare for the reality. For 30 minutes on both sides of the carriage - just water as far as the eye could see.
Poor people and wildlife. I felt a little guilty capturing human misery with my camera. But it was mesmerizing being on a train that appeared to be skimming across miles of water. Credit to Cross Country Trains for their punctuality and cheerful service.
Exmouth had taken a battering but not as much as Dawlish just over the bay where a section of the railway was hanging in mid-air and a battle was on to rebuild the route ready for the Easter Holiday.
Every night from my hotel room I saw the arc lights brightly lit as Network Rail worked around the clock and the tides.
Peziza vesiculosa (Dung Cup)
I came across this little fungus in a heavily horse manured park. Dung cup is specific to horse manure.
There were lots all lying on the surface of the manure. The dimensions are: 3-8 cm diam. When young it looks like a little shallow button, upon maturity it takes on the appearance of a cup with an uneven margin. The colour varies from dark buff to light tan. The exterior of the cap is markedly creased and the inside is smooth.
There was not much else to photograph as it seemed the floods had washed away all the spores and fruit bodies.
These photographs can now be viewed on Browse 5, www.fungiworld.co.uk
