Botanising in Blean Village

This is a sort of revision for the practical walk we did earlier in the evening.

For example we looked a a couple of sedges. The first was the fairly common Hairy Sedge, Carex hirta, and the second was Grey Sedge, Carex divulsa,

Hairy Sedge, Carex hirta, has long sparse hairs on the edges

The Grey Sedge, Carex divulsa, was found in a hedge bottom along the pavement, on the way back close to the village hall. This has long narrow droopy dark green leaves in loose (dense, surely??) tussocks of many stems. The inflorescence is spaced out small clumps of nutlets, with a thin needle-like bract, which is shorter than the inflorescence as a whole.

Lichen on the Blean

It seemed to be quite a coincidence that I stopped to take a photo of a fairly obvious lichen that proved to be one of the key species noted in the area, Thelotrema lepadinum. There are about 20 official records in TR on the NBN database, all in The Blean or down towards Mersham.

It has an unusual appearance as the apothecial bounday membrane is separated from the thallus wall, and appears as a papery membrane inside the throat of the volcano-like apothecia. It is regarded in East Kent as an indicator of an ancient woodland site - possibly. There are no records from West Kent at present. It is much commoner in the north and west of the UK.

The above photo was taken from quite a large well-established patch.

Here is a newer patch appearing on a fairly smooth-barked tree:

Lichens on trees at Yalding Fen

Had a lovely day with the Ash Project and Ishpi Blatchley looking at lichens on trees, particularly Ash Trees, wood and other substrates.

This is one of the common bark lichens we found, Parmelia sulcata, with its exuberant soralia developed from pseudocyphellae obviously in the centre of the thallus, its lovely grey lobes, brown to black on the undersurface.

This I think is a Physcia species, with the narrow lobes, in this case growing on wood, the hand-rail of a footbridge between the central pond and the marsh with the duckboard path. I think it is quite likely to be Physcia tenella, but I couldn't see any developed apothecia, or indeed any of the tiny black spots or pycnidia that you often see in pictures. The cilia on the edges of the lobes are quite visible, so it could perhaps be P. adscencens or P. tenella.

In the more established part of the lichen, the soredia make it look much more fuzzy.

This is an interesting photo of another section of the bridge timbers, with a grey foliose lichen with pseudocyphellae on the lobe to the bottom left of the photo. There are also some tiny black pimples on a surface in front, on the other section of timber.

Here are three different lichens on the top surface of the main bridge timber rail:

Evernia prunastri on an oak or willow perhaps

Usnea?

Grey lichen with black jam tart apothecia, perhaps Lecidella elaeochroma (Ach.) M.Choisy, slightly overgrown by a Physcia species, and with some limited black margins to be seen.

This is the white paint lichen, Phlyctis argena, on one of the trees along the driveway into Great Comp garden. In this instance I couldn't see see soredia (the usual description is soredia abundant or rare) or any apothecia (usual description is rare, but if found they should be dark grey, pruinose, with large muriform spores).

Fieldfare in the garden

We were so pleased to see a Fieldfare in the snow in the garden today (probably the same one more briefly yesterday afternoon). I hoped that it was attracted by the newly planted Crab Apple, and sure enough it spent some time feeding on the crabs on the tree itself. Paula took a photo with the iphone, and I followed up with a few of my own. Fieldfares are very dramatic thrushes, and I was also very pleased to see over a score scattered across the College grounds, but particularly on the banks of the ditch along the main drive. Make the most of it while its there I thought!

All plumped up...

The Fieldfare, Turdus pilaris, is a common winter visitor to the UK, one which I always absolutely delighted to see, and of course to hear. Perhaps a couple of pairs breed in the UK.

They do have a bit of a reputation of being driven into gardens in hard weather, feasting off crab or domestic apples and whatever they can find. Today was no exception, Twitter containing many similar experiences to our own. I must get some apples to put out! Meanwhile this particular bird has found my crab apple fruits.

I have come across one (only one) website that suggests that the female is a little duller. The juveniles are duller, without the grey head, but I assume they will have moulted before arrival in the UK I think.

About three quarters of a million migrate over to us each winter, starting in September but continuing until November at least.

25 cm long, wingspan about 40 cm, so quite a large thrush, nearly the size of a Mistle Thrush.

When a group is in a tree they all tend to face in the same direction, keeping up a constant chatter. When foraging on the ground, often in association with Redwings, the group works its way up wind, each bird pausing every so often to stand erect and gaze around before resuming feeding. When alarmed they fly off down wind and the feeding group reforms elsewhere.

When berries ripen in the autumn these are taken in great number. Hawthorn, holly, rowan, yew, juniper, dog rose, Cotoneaster, Pyracantha and Berberis are all relished. Later in the winter windfall apples are eaten, swedes attacked in the field and grain and seeds eaten

Leybourne Lakes

The species aggregate (probably) willow rosette gall, Rhabdophaga rosaria on Crack Willow behind the dipping pond. Hoping to cut it open to reveal the larva!

Dene Park

There seems to me to be relatively few visible macro-fungi in Dene Park, and today on a very muddy and rather miserable late afternoon turned up very little for me to photograph.


This close-up is of a crust fungus, probably the Hairy Curtain-Crust, Stereum hirsutum,  which really does seem to be very orange much of the time, whether as small tiers of brackets, or as resupinate crusts. This species is one of the commonest species recorded in the UK, found on hardwoods in very large patches and very commonly covering logs. There is another species, Stereum rameale, which is supposedly less hairy. I do find it a little difficult to be sure about differentiating these.

Just a couple of notes on Stereum rameale or aka ochraceoflavum. The habitat is said to be fallen twigs and small branches of broadleaved trees.  

Stereum hirsutum is found mainly on dead wood, but is occasionally seen on live wood, perhaps near wounds and it might be mildly parasitic. However it is mainly known as an abundant saprophyte. I wonder whether it is much more zoned and hairier at other times of year?

I assume from some of the pictures that the resupinate crust is often an earlier stage of development and the little turbinate bodies are the intermediate stage where the bracket is about to develop.

This is rather more highly magnified and showing the early stages I think - is that mycelium underneath these crusts? I think its more likely than being the hairy upper surface?

Stereum hirsutum is an all-year annual, and I think the crusty brackets fairly quickly discolour , darken and perhaps get covered in algae. However the colours of these are rather bright rich yellow to orange. Bibby has the hymenial (lower) surface as smooth, yellow-ochre to yellow-brown NOT reddening when injured. Bibby also has the upperside of the crusts as hairy-tomentose, zonate, yellow-orange, ochre to greyish-ochre. Buczacki has it as wavy, and distinctly downy-hairy.

This photo may indicate some dying off of the Stereum, possibly caused by the attack of another fungus or other pathogen.

Here are some more brackets, 2 - 5 cm diameter, on the same log, often with much darker brown centres, perhaps with a few velvety hairs glinting slightly in the flash light. I think that this is a different species of Stereum, but it might just be better developed Stereum hirsutum. The needles belong to the Douglas Fir I think, but that might be entirely incidental.. 

The flesh is tough, elastic and clearly inedible. There is no taste or smell. The spores, which I have never seen, are supposed to be white.

This is just a bit further up, and to the right of the last image.

In another place, this is a white resupinate fungus on fallen wood, unknown ID.

And in yet another spot, here are some mosses on an old stump, possibly a Sweet Chestnut.

and another species, this one with capsules,

And some stump lichen:

Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve

We had a great walk around with the Kent Wildlife Trust on their Winter Trees Id walk. The warden had excellent inter-personal skills and made everyone feel at home. One possible improvement would be to know beforehand what everyone wanted to get out of the day, and to do a bit of personal tailoring?

Plenty of tree pictures, and then I went round the "circuit" again to try and find some fungi.

This appeared to be a double mushroom on this horizontal log covered in mosses, but when I turned it over it was poroid rather than gilled. After consulting Bibby, I thought it might perhaps be the Winter Polypore, Polyporus brumalis, and there was some support for that on the Kent Fungus Group. However it was a fairly poor photo, and of course people, however polite, could not be sure.

Polyporus brumalis is a white rot that has at least some strains that are extremely effective at attacking lignin.

On a blackened log pile I found what I thought were Turkeytail, Trametes versicolor and also Phlebia tremellosa.