Some Sedges at Mereworth Woods, TQ6353 and TQ6354

Along the roadside on Hurst Park Road, this could be more of the Grey Sedge, Carex divulsa, ssp divulsa, with its long slender inflorescence, somewhat shorter lowest bract and overall pale glumes; albeit each with a clear green midrib. Generally for these smaller loose tussocky sedges with drooping inflorescences I think we are looking at Remote Sedge or Grey Sedge, with the odd Spiked Sedge worming its way in from time to time, or so I imagine.

Here are two images of the same clump, one image without Tob's nosey and one with. Noting the dark green of the leaves, sometimes very shiny on the top surface, the overall paler narrow (appressed?) spikes on the spreading stems and the occasional few male spikelets at the top of at least the topmost spike.

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There were several stems taken from the roadside for a closer look, which seemed to more or less confirm the ID, especially the distant lower spikes, although other species and hybrids certainly cannot be eliminated. Issues with this ID are that the lowest bracts are sometimes longer than normally expected, but this is allowed for in the Jermy et al text and in some images I have seen, and that the utricles may develop looking brown to my eyes rather than the described "grey-black".  

However the overall inflorescence is difficult to match to any other species, and the female glumes show the overall pale almost transparent colour with the strong green midribs, acute or acuminate.

The utricles do start off whitish-green, biconvex, beaked, and could, I suppose, be described as diamond-shaped, and their outer bases certainly do show a degree of ribbing, as described.

Moving on to the bridleway. as usual there were fair numbers of individual scattered Pendulous Sedge, Carex pendula on the path-sides, and after this plant, there may have been both seedlings and a number of plants suppressed by drought and compaction that were a fraction of the normal size. 

 

The last species seen today along the path to the right was likely to have been the Wood Sedge, Carex sylvatica, as already listed by the BSBI, although perhaps I should have checked the ligules a little more carefully for the presence of the Thin Wood Sedge, Carex strigosa.

Some Sedges

 

Just by the car park in Dene Park there is an area of grassland where puddles collect above the banks in winter. By one of them is one, and only one, moderate clump of the Spiky Sedge, Carex spicata (Huds). There are two stigmas, the utricles are the right shape, not obviously ribbed, the glumes, or some at least are brown with a central green midrib or wider area, the spikelets are not too distantly spaced, the leaves are the right length, diameter and appear to end in flat tips, the ligules are the right length and shape to separate this from the other members of the Carex muricata group. 

But I cannot see any evidence of vinaceous red on any of the parts, at least as yet. Also, the lower bracts are not really as glumaceous (?) as they are depicted in Jermy et al. 

And this is the end of May, this should not have finished flowering yet!

Scattered through the woodland are clumps of the Wood Sedge, Carex sylvatica (Huds), sometimes in apparently very dry areas. Found in woodlands or possibly where woodlands used to be - maybe thought to be an ancient woodland indicator! Often found on the sides of tracks or in ruts. This is a clump, just the one, from the area of Beech/Oak to the East of the car park. I worried for a while that I might have mistaken this for the Thin-spiked Wood Sedge Carex strigosa (Huds) as the female spikelets did not appear to be pendulous at least at this stage, but the peduncles are clearly too long for that. Well worth double checking though.  Good to see the bright mid-green of the leaves.

Concentrated around one of the junctions of the main circuit, and with a couple of plants also along the Fox Wood path, is the large and distinctive Pendulous Sedge, Carex pendula (Huds). I don't think there is anything else like this on wet and heavy nutrient-rich clay soils. Note the saw-toothed leaves and the long leaf-like bracts subtending the shortly pedunculate but pendulous female spikelets, as well as the untidy terminal male spikelet. Again, possibly fruiting early.   

This is a much more tightly cropped view of the inflorescence shown above.

Along the Fox Wood path, where the pond/partly dammed stream lies out in the field, around the edge there is a good dominating stand of the Greater Pond Sedge, Carex riparia (Curtis), confirmed by the shape of the developing utricles.

A closer view of an inflorescence

These plants were seen previously in 2024, but that was later in the season, with the utricles better developed:

Further downstream, and back in the wood, where the path crosses the culverted stream, there is a uniform patch of the Remote Sedge, Carex remota (L). The spread-out nature of the spikelets in the overall inflorescence is fairly diagnostic (I hope, apart from the Grey sedge, Carex divulsa ssp divulsa (Stokes) to be expected on drier soils probably) and it was nice to see this patch on the softer organic low-lying soil to the side of the stream.

    

Yellow-Cress, Rorippa at Mereworth Woods.

 Along one of the many tracks in the Mereworth Woods complex running North above Gover Hill, I found many hundred basal rosettes of a Rorippa species, almost, but not quite certainly, the Marsh Yellow-Cress, Rorippa palustris. This is an annual or short-lived perennial which appears to generally spread by seed, so it may have had some good years recently. It is much more successful at seed set than its rather more perennial relative, Rorippa sylvestris.

Some of the plants were a bit larger, with some with upright stems bearing some developing flowers, but there were no flowers actually out to measure the size of the petals or compare the relative size of the sepals and petals, and it was far too early in the year for fruit size and shape to be assessed, as the first few were just being formed, so I was unable to be absolutely sure of the identification. I did look carefully at as many of the stem leaves as I could find, and I thought that they were not as fully pinnately divided, nor with the really narrow lobes of the Creeping Yellow-Cress, Rorippa sylvestris, the most likely other Rorippa species that could be found here. Further evidence was the apparent absence of the creeping roots of the perennial Rorippa sylvestris, and the guidance of the KBRG records indicating the presence in this and the neighbouring tetrads of only Rorippa palustris.    

Slightly worrying was the persistence of the rosette leaves. Perhaps this refers to plants that continue into post-flowering or into the second year?

The leaves appear to have been hammered by something like Flea Beetles:

waxy crusts

 

The genus Vuilleminia, named after Paul Vuillemin, is characteristically in the UK considered to be 2 or 3 species of thin waxy crusts that occur beneath the bark of various trees. The commonest would be the very thin, often translucent but with violet tinges, non-cystidiate Vuilleminia comedens which is generally found on Oak, and the two less common lilac-toned but cystidiate Vuilleminia coryli almost always on Hazel, and the chalky-white Vuilleminia cystidiata found on Hawthorn normally. 

This lovely splash of colour along the Access Trail close to Hadlow Village is therefore very likely to be Vuilleminia coryli.  The thin crust is tightly covering the bare wood, and there are thin curled-up patches of bark visible on either side. It has that waxy look!

and in greater close-up, with a bit better light. The small white bumps and the slightly reddish edges of the crust and the red undersides of the freshly turned up bark do match many of the photos on-line.

Its a new species for me and a really gorgeous sight. I am so lucky to have found it!

Ochre Bracket, Trametes ochracea

 

The tan, almost orange in some lights, top, which was just a very slightly felty when magnified led me towards this less common Trametes species, Trametes ochracea, the Ochre Bracket, one that I keep on hoping to find, but rarely get even a hint of. 

Compared to Turkeytail, Trametes versicolor, the clearly thicker individual brackets in fused (not separate) tiers, creamy (not white) shaded pores with well-defined margins about 3-4 (not 4-5) per mm, white flesh with no dark line below the tomentum, and fairly broad attachment making the fruiting bodies quite difficult to pull away from the substrate supported this. This specimen was found on the cut end of a large Birch log in Styants Wood, but the species actually has a wide range of deciduous hosts, including Oak and Beech.

However by this time of year the mushroom fly larvae and others have had a field day and these brackets were in poor condition with a lot of slime and rot apparent. Measuring spore shape and size would help to confirm this less common species of Trametes, so this has to remain just a possible.  

The Shaggy Parasol

 

Two Shaggy Parasols, Chlorophyllum rhacodes, under Beech from a quick walk this evening. the flesh should be reddish when cut.

Stem should be dark, but not snake-patterned below the ring

Together with lots of Bleeding Broadleaf Crust, Stereum rugosum on a fallen young Beech, reddening quite nicely

A sulphurous end to the mildness of autumn

Lots of wood-rotting going on in Fox Wood Covert this afternoon, with also a few Buttercaps, Rhodocollybia butyracea, scattered around and a small patch of the Sulphur Knight, Tricholoma sulphureum, near the beginning. Note the central browning around a small remaining umbo. There are some purple shades on some caps according to the books, often quite confusing.

It is a relatively tall mushroom! Stem often twice the cap diameter, as it appears to be here. And the smell was definitely strong and noxious.

I couldn't see any reddish fibres on the stem as described and the gills looked almost decurrent within the "sinuate" range. 

Supposedly mycorrhizal with deciduous trees such as Oak and Beech, only occasionally with conifers. These ones might be linked to some nearby Oaks, oddly I haven't found it under the Beech trees elsewhere in the woods.

Compare to Tricholoma frondosae under Aspen at Beacon Wood a couple of weeks ago.

A lovely patch of Stereum subtomentosum, both from above and below, trying to look a little like Turkeytail.

This Datronia mollis was I think on a long-fallen Ash branch, stacked by kids on a Hornbeam. This is quite variable according to age and development. I suspect the first two are images of the same younger patch of fruiting body, the first untouched and the second rubbed.  The third image is I believe an older and more bruised patch, with proportionately larger pores, but still resupinate and not yet elongated and maze-like. 

In the last photo there is a jelly-like species, just possibly Crystal Brain, Exidia nucleata.

This appears to be a very young King Alfred's Cakes, Daldinia concentrica, which ought to be a mid-brown colour in itself, but covered in greyish spores. 

and this is the context. There looks to be some Chlorociboria on the log below, presumably Oak.

There was a nice patch of Candlesnuff, Xylaria hypoxylon on a mossy log

This appears to be a Bonnet or Mycena species pretending to be an Oysterling or Crepidotus. Shows how to fool the AI! 

The Peeled Oysterling, Crepidotus mollis, seems to be having a good year.

 A nice Ganoderma adspersum on one of the boundary Hornbeams,

There was one log with fruiting Smokey Bracket, resupinate and reflexed, Bjerkandera adusta, possibly on Hornbeam.

Finally a variety of fresh growths, again resupinate and reflexed, of the Silverleaf Fungus, Chondrostereum purpureum, possibly on Hornbeam