BBQ near Harrietsham

Red Admiral on the lawn, and a nice collection of perhaps rather crowded trees. One of the purple plums had a couple of Ganoderma applanatum brackets on a dead stump. I rubbed the edge of the spore surface and it turned brown immediately - the spores?

Sweet Cicely I thought at the bottom of the garden, in the hedge by the side road.

Ganoderma australe/adspersum possibly

 

This perennial bracket is a common feature of the basal area of many broad-leaved trees in the UK. Perhaps G. adspersum is the better name for the examples found in the UK? 

I THINK this is a fairly typical shot. This species is separated morphologically from the closely related Ganoderma applanatum by its thicker cuticle or upper surface, consistently over 1 mm thick. Ganoderma australe/adspersum is by far the commoner, and thought to be most aggressively parasitic. Ganoderma applanatum is more generally confined in its saprophytic role to already dead and moribund trees. 

Where targets are at risk and the conks are noticed, then the hollowness and the stability of the tree where the fruiting bodies have been seen should be checked. This particular photograph was actually taken at the start of the month two years ago, near Harrietsham while we were attending a BBQ. I cannot remember whether we checked the surroundings very carefully, but my memory tells me that this might have been close to a relatively quiet country road.

As a result of its thinner cuticle, the upper surface of G. applanatum is often softer and depressable with a thumb or finger, whilst G. australe/adspersum is much harder and has no give. "This should be tried on fruitbodies appearing to be at least two years old and upward but not applied to old fruitbodies with crumbling cuticles." What do we make of this?

This age threshold should also be applied when observing and comparing the "context" of the two species, i.e. the thickness of flesh layer between each season’s tube growth. Here the thickness difference is the other way round, it is thinner to non-existent in G. australe/adspersum!  http://www.londonfungusgroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Ganoderma.pdf

In Ganoderma applanatum, the margin of the conk may also often be thinner/sharper, and there may be its characteristic fly galls on the lower surface, which are never found on G. australe/adspersum. If you were to find a Ganoderma on a conifer, there are no to very few records of G. australe/adspersum on conifers in the UK, whereas there are some of Ganoderma applanatum, but there are other species to consider!

Perforate and other St Johns Worts.

Well, always a bit of a tricky genus. One of the things I should always do is to check that the plant isn't hairy at a fairly early stage, and whether the flowers are a rich golden yellow or a paler more acid level of yellow.

At least partly in retrospect, these flowers in Dene Park are a golden yellow, and the petals are longer  than the sepals.

In this case I did remember having looked at the leaves to see that they were perforate, to check to see if there were any black dots around the edge of the underside of the leaves and petals - there were. This isn't unfortunately a character! The stem felt round with two small but clear ridges. In theory this species can be up to 80 cm tall, but is often less.

My next step was a bit more solid, to check the sepals which were actually pointed (rather than blunt), but without any obvious stalked black spots (although there could be some according to Stace, generally un-stalked). This is now beginning to look like perforate St Johns Wort, Hypericum perforatum.

There were no black streaks or splashes on the petals, the stems were not squared off, there were "perforations" in the leaves, and the soil wasn't notably damp, the sepals weren't spotted (often in lines) and unequal (?), so it doesn't look like imperforate, Hypericum maculatum ssp obtusiusculum, which I think I might have seen down towards East Lock perhaps - but its actually very rare in Kent.

The plant did not have a stem that was reddish with four wings, and the flower was not notably pale, with the petals only a little longer than the sepals, very few perforations, so it was unlikely to be the Square-stemmed, sepals also not very stalked-dotted, Hypericum tetrapterum.

The plant didn't look a bit like tetrapterum slightly four edged, but with sometimes red-flushed bright yellow flowers, wavy leaves with plenty of perforations and black dots on its pointed equal sepals and possibly elsewhere, quite rare in marshy places, Wavy St Johns Wort, Hypericum undulatum. Not in Kent.

The plant wasn't erect but downy, with roundish stem, longer and more strongly veined leaves with perforations, paler yellow flowers and fairly obvious stalked black dots on the sepal (and possibly also sometimes petal) edges, so shouldn't be the Hairy St Johns Wort, Hypericum hirsutum. Mainly on chalk.

The plant wasn't downy except on the upper surface of the leaves, with longer strongly veined leaves, but without perforations, although similar paler yellow flowers and obvious stalked black dots on the sepal edges, so shouldn't be the Pale St Johns Wort on calcareous soil, Hypericum montanum. Only West Kingsdown and Darenth.

The plant wasn't in an acidic bog or marsh in the west of the country, with procumbent stems rooting at its nodes, grey woolly-hairy almost circular leaves, and with sepals with reddish dots on the edges, so it wasn't Hypericum elodes. Only Hothfield and Bedgebury.

There is the very erect slender-stemmed species with blunt oval leaves with cordate bases and perforations, petals orange-yellow, with reddish undersides, with black stalked dots on the edges of the petals and the sepals, Hypericum pulchrum. Woodland rides and sandy heaths. Hopefully seen on the grassy area at Dene Park.

Equally the plant wasn't creeping across the ground, smaller oval leaves, with smaller pale flowers, petals a bit (but not twice) longer than sepals, "normally" dotted sepals and a round but two-ridged stem, so it wasn't Hypericum humifusum. I think I have seen this on the sandy soil at Pembury.

There is the rare toad-flaxed leaved species, Hypericum linariifolium, upright, round un-ridged stem, longer, more linear leaves with very few perforations, petals more than twice length of sepals, lots of stalked black spots on sepals, Southwest and Wales on acid rocks, so obviously not in Kent.

That looks like all the reasonably likely herbaceous Hypericums!

Leeds Castle

Good butterfly numbers mainly whites and meadow browns, one persistent Red Admiral on Stephen's shirt, nice veteran trees and Douglas Firs.

Ganoderma australe, Meripilus giganteus and Velutina flammulipes

Well worth a visit.

A muggy Bourne walk

Although muggy, it was a little breezy and overcast. Not brilliant butterfly watching weather.

1 Peacock, 1 Hutchinsonii Comma. I haven't seen a Small Tortoiseshell for quite a while.

Several Small Whites, other Whites suspected.

Lots of Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers (including at least one female), a few Ringlets.

A few Banded Demoiselles, both males and females.

Walked along MT125 in the evening, a good patch of Common Cudweed by the small bridge.

The Bourne circuit

Very pleased to see a Painted Lady on the first bramble patch from the Victoria Road entrance. Its the first record for me in the parish that I know of. I think I probably also saw the same individual on the track below the reservoir at the end of the walk - quite a big coincidence otherwise! Such a wonderful subtle-yet-gorgeous underside pattern.

Chiff-chaff on the ash on the other side of the road. Chiff-chaffing and then a series of little brrtt sounds, repeating all several times. Heard a similar track on Xeno-canto.

Best bramble patch is the one by  the Victoria Road bridge.

Swallows and Martins over the willow bridge bend.

Wandering down to East Lock

As I got down to the Environment Agency's "Wildflower sowing patch" by East Lock the area looked to be better for damselflies than the whole of the rest of the walk so far.

The first one identified was the blue homochrome form of the Azure Damselfly, Coenagrion puella, with this one having a moderate amount of blue on its abdomen. This could be compared with a darker variant that I have also seen. The thorax is still green. Less than 10% of the females are reputed to be the blue "homochrome" form, while over 90% are supposed to be the typical female "heterochrome" form (no reference).

I was pleased to see the White-legged Damselflies, Platycnemis pennipes, here as I don't recall them from previous years. Here is an immature female, known as the "lactea" phase. Note the buffy pterostigmas. The second photo might be of a different animal, I'm not sure.

and here is the male,