As far as the Alders

 

Coming to a resolution of sorts on the Beech fungus, I suspect that it is quite old and therefore it is reasonable to suppose it is possible that all the scales might have been washed off.

Two or three features really stand out.

Firstly this was one of the most slimy, slippiest things I have ever tried to pick up. This fits with the Pholiota group and not Gymnopilus.

Its stems are curved horizontally and downwards to the caps, again pointing to Pholiota.

The stems are all conjoined at the base, a feature noted for Pholiota.

When tasted it was nasty in texture but it was not bitter. That really should eliminate Gymnopilus.

Cloudy Funnel on the left, Oyster on the right as I look at these two.

And again. Note the pale, clunky, decurrent and widely spaced gills on the Oyster.

 

Dene Park in the gloaming

 

I went straight to the Beech area towards the boundary bank this evening, and found this rather old bunch of fruiting bodies of a Pholiota(?) species on a Beech tree wound at about chest height. This would need microscopy to be sure of the exact species but I think that it would be likely to be in the adiposa group of species as it is currently understood. 

Around the bases of the Beech trees were plenty of Clouded Funnels, Clitocybe nebularis, quite neat in their young stages, but floppy and all over the place when older

It really does get paler at the base of the stem

There were also quite a few Butter Caps, as previously but no photos. 

Common fungi in Dene Park

 

Buttercap - note the woolly foot.

Clouded Funnel - surprisingly dramatically curled up when older!

Wood Blewit, Lepista nuda, lovely to see!

Stagshorn, Calocera viscosa 

Candlesnuff, Xylaria hypoxylon

Unknown Bonnet, Mycena

Coleophora species on Hawthorn

 

I have been able to find a few larval cases on Hawthorn, mainly Crataegus monogyna or the hybrid I think. The ones I found look similar to each other and are I am afraid unidentifiable down to species, but they are still fascinating to see, so here is a picture that I was quite pleased with, not the one taken with the phone!

 

A few fungi from The Scambles

 

Interesting mushroom on well decaying fallen leg

Fuscoporia species on Hazel

Schizopora paradoxa rather broken down extensive coverage of log

 

Really quite weird apparent attack on the fruiting surface of Schizopora paradoxa, maybe leaving droppings?  

Stereum subtomentosum I reckon.

Surface of unknown crust. Could it be Schizopora again?

Not a bad half an hour?

Woodwarts on Hazel

 

I found some dead stems in a Hazel stool by the side of the muddy steep slope on the main path round the woods. On this one were some Woodwart looking fungi, apparently quite old and solidified, all along the stem. Judging by the colour and shape I would still say that this was fairly like Hazel Woodwart, Hypoxylon fuscum. I was unable to get any samples for KOH testing. 

 

I think there might be a separate tar crust under the peeling bark. Might be worth peeling back a bit more bark to see if there are any fresh surfaces to examine.

This next one looks different though, blacker and also erupting out of the thin bark. This was found near the Scambles, but fairly near the grass triangle end. Its just got a very different "jizz" to it.

   

Phyllonorycter coryli and nicellii on Hazel

Now, at the start of July, there are quite a few of the first generation Phyllonorycter coryli (Nicelli) leaf mines in their early flat silvery stage are appearing on the upper side of the Hazel leaves. Sometimes there are multiple mines per leaf. The caterpillars seem quite small, a couple of mm long at this stage. It would probably be better to wait a couple of weeks to see if we can find some pupal cocoons in order to breed through. There may be some up-folding of the leaves already, and that somewhat darker more contracted stage of the mine surface is the one to wait for. These should fairly quickly metamorphose into the adult moths. Sadly I had no luck getting any adult moths out of these mines.

The caterpillars mine July and September-October, while the two generations of adult moths are May and August. By implication there should be a resting pupal stage from October through April. Presumably this is in the decaying leaves and then the litter on the forest floor. There should also be a brief pupal stage between July and August that is our target stage for collection. The pupae should be in cocoons in the opposite corner of the mines to the piles of frass.

There is also the significant possibility of accidentally collecting numbers of parasitoids instead of unparasitised pupae. It will be interesting to keep an eye out for Braconid and Ichneumonid wasps.

and a closer view:

and I did find just one possible example of Phyllonorycter nicellii (Stainton), the Red Hazel Midget, which mines the underside of the leaf. I think I was lucky to spot it, as I just saw the darkness of the leaf fold. I didn't think that it was necessarily typical, but it did clearly have the "nibbling" around the edge of the mine clearly visible on the upper surface of the leaf, so I doubt it was N. coryli. The species appears to have a similar life cycle timing to Phyllonorycter coryli, and I found a few more over the following weeks, but this is still very much the minority species in this particular wood.

The NBN atlas claims that "the mine [of Phyllonorycter nicelli] is usually between two side veins. The pupa is formed in a white cocoon in a corner of the mine. It is attached to both the roof and the floor of the mine. The frass is deposited in an opposite corner." This mine was on the edge of the leaf, so that the margin of the leaf rolled down and in, unlike the common depictions of the mine as arching up between two leaf veins, with the axis of the mine leading away from the midvein. Almost all the other mines I detected were of the more typical form described.

Again there are multiple Chalcid and Ichneumonid parasitoids recorded.

This is a more typically shaped mine for Phyllonorycter nicellii, photographed a few days later on the 5th. Note that the tent is in great condition, with multiple browner creases, typical of the Phyllonorycter genus and of this species, so I am fairly confident about the ID.

and this is the upperside of the leaf showing the shape of the mine more clearly and the significant upfolding of the leaf together with the apparently typical "edge of the mine" nibbling. The nibbling can however also be seen apparently in the (usually smaller, squarer?) mines of Parornix devoniella.

Stereum serendipity

Wandering through the Northeast edge of a wet and muddy Dene Park today meandering through the Yew copse towards the Alders down by the waterworks, there were a few patchy finds to be made. Also there was an opportunity to weed three Laurel seedlings, every little helps! As you move off the car park, the first compartment has a number of Beech, but as you move up the hill there is quite a dense cluster of youngish Birch trees, with some standard Oak. Here is a view of the Birch, note the dense stems. It is quite easy to find some Stereum and Schizopora in this area.

On a fallen Alder by the weir I found what I think was a young fairly flexible Stereum subtomentosum (Pouzar) nicely orange overall but clearly white-edged. This is generally called the Yellowing Curtain Crust, and it should have released a bit of yellow fluid when cut - which of course I forgot to test for, even though I had deliberately brought my knife with me for the first time. |A scratch of the lower surface is the recommended approach.

The brackets should be quite narrowly attached, about 3 - 7 cm across and 1 - 2 mm thick, and irregularly wavy at the edges. These were also obviously much less hairy than Stereum hirsutum, hence subtomentosum, but the hairiness is apparently quite variable according to the interweb. Spores should be being released in summer and autumn and the spore print should be white to a very light tan in colour.

There were also apparently older outgrowths further along the trunk, showing the very significant differences in appearance as the "ears" age,

Another crust in Dene Park, Antrodia albida I think

A "Pore-Crust"??

Possibly Antrodia albida, one of the commoner Antrodia species in the UK. Pores quite "polygonal" 1 mm or more across, tubes a few mm long, Slightly light brown or strong cream in main colour, whitish underneath the tubes and at the edges.

Fungi at Dene Park.

I was pointed in the direction of this lovely burst of sunshine by a friendly lady dog walker. I believe this is Yellow Brain, Yellow Trembler, Golden Jelly Fungus, Tremella. It is possibly Tremella mesenterica, rather than its sister species, Tremella aurantia. 

T. mesenterica is said to be the more "slimy" of the two, while T. aurantia is regarded as more matte.

This was quite an attractive pinkish crust fungus, which I haven't tracked down yet.