Comb Wood, Wittersham

A bimble around Wittersham, meeting Chris as the neophyte Tree Warden for the Parish. We had a look at some street trees, the Village Green and Comb Wood. Comb Wood was very muddy and a friendly dog-walker was saying that the trees are very subject to windblow because the soil is clay on the Isle of Oxney and the roots find it difficult to penetrate deeply into the regolith, so forming a shallow rootplate. There were certainly quite a lot of leaning trees!

We saw possible Schizopora paradoxa, rather broken down, demonstrating the range of colours from cream to ochre. We also came across some Witches/Warlock's Butter, Exidia, possibly Warlock's Butter, Exidia nigricans ( = plana). We should have had a closer look at that, to see the surface details.

We came across some brackets on a very rotting log that I thought were Ganoderma australe/adspersum. The top surface was very solid and tough. I counted about 1-3 pores per mm. There is some conflicting evidence about this, suggesting much smaller, more closely packed pores, maybe 5-6 pores per mm for both species.

Chris sent in a photo of another rotting log with a possible Stereum subtomentosum, and what was likely to be the asexual (anamorphic?) stage of Kretzschmaria deusta. Fantastic!

The fungus list for Comb Wood stands at:

Schizopora paradoxa, Split Porecrust

Exidia glandulosa, Witches' Butter 

Ganoderma australe, Southern Bracket

Daedaleopsis confragosa, Blushing Bracket

Stereum subtomentosum, Yellowing Curtain Crust

Kretzschmaria deusta, Brittle Cinder Fungus

Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, Ash Dieback  

High Brede Woods

Had a nice walk in quite cold but dry weather from the Eastern car park. There wasn't a huge amount about and not much birdsong. The woods are quite open, oddly enough with relatively little bramble.

There was quite a lot of lichen on the trunks, for example of the oak. Here is a grey Parmelioid type,

and a closer view of the above

which appears to be breaking down and going a bit pink.

A closer view

Tonbridge Sports Ground

Walking Toby down on the sports ground to play ball, I took a few pictures of the interesting trees around the edges of some of the pitches. This Ash has had its top snapped out, an absolute classic. I am going to assume this is purely storm damage.

On the fallen branches by the railway, I found one interesting looking minor branchlet, with something like a Peniophora crust on it. Some patches looked a pure chalky white (the ones on the top of the branchlet), and others (the nearer ones on the side of the branchlet) looked a rather pinky-grey off-white, However, when I looked at the pictures there were no pinky-grey patches to be picked out at all. Despite that, and the apparent lack of a dark underside, my best guess would still be something along the lines of Peniophora quercina.

A mashed oak a little further along, left as a monolith,

By the river heading back towards the car park there was this Birch that is in trouble, with some previous attacks by Fomitopsis betulina.

This is the broken off stalk of the Fomitopsis bracket.

This is where the majority of the mycelium of the Fomitopsis should be, hopefully found throughout the broken down trunk of the Birch. Fomitopsis is a brown rotter, and this might link to the brown black discolouration of the trunk.

Some of the Crack Willows have been worked on, which may have reduced the windage risks. Whether this has been a huge advantage in the longer term, is difficult to tell.

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,

Yes, more fungi from Dene Park

Witches' Butter, Exidia glandulosa, is an utterly amazing fungus,

Quote: "Exidia glandulosa is a wood-rotting species, typically found on dead attached branches of broadleaf trees, especially oak, occasionally hazel or beech. It is a pioneer species capable of colonizing living or recently dead wood. A study of the wood decay process in attached oak branches showed that E. glandulosa is a member of a community of eight basidiomycetous fungi consistently associated with the decay of dying branches on living trees. Specifically, its role is to disintegrate the tissue of the vascular cambium, which loosens the attached bark. It persists for some while on fallen branches and logs."

I THINK this is more likely to be on eg hazel than oak, but it is a difficult one to be sure. These fruiting bodies are a bit dried out and shrunken, but you can just see the pimples on the upper surface.

The other complication is that Witches' Butter Exidia glandulosa or E. truncata has a rather confusing sister species which is similar but coalesces and is generally called Warlock's Butter, E. plana or E. nigrescens. It is probably impossible to tell the difference at this stage of desiccation. 

This next crust fungus was found on a fallen branch. It bears at least a superficial resemblance to some of the images of Steccherinum fimbriatum, supposedly common in Hampshire at least. But it doesn't seem to have the central "fruiting" area covered with minute spines of the larger patches often pictured.

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.