A Coral, a Funnel, a Blusher, a Tuft and a Puffball, Dene Park

Crested Coral, Clavulina cristata or coralloides, Note the slight browning due to ageing. The fused branches rise up from a base typically 1.5 to 2.5cm tall and reach a total height of up to 7cm. The tips of this white to cream coral fungus turn brown with age.

When attacked by micro fungi, this coral can turn grey or even black, making identification more confusing.

Clouded Funnel/Agaric, Clitocybe nebularis, possibly saprobic upon the leaf litter. It is said to form rings or masses. The cap of the mushroom is 5–25 cm (2–8 in) in diameter, convex with an incurved margin, becoming plane to depressed in shape. Cap colours are generally greyish to light brownish-grey, and often covered in a whitish bloom when young. 

The surface of the cap is usually dry to moist, and radially fibrillose. The gills are pale, adnate to short-decurrent, close and usually forked. The stem measures 5–10 cm (2–3+7⁄8 in) long and 2–4 cm wide; it is stout, swollen towards the base, becomes hollow with age, and is easily broken. It is usually somewhat lighter than the cap. The flesh is white, and very thick. It usually has a foul-smelling odour, which has been described as slightly farinaceous to rancid.

The Blusher, Amanita rubescens. Probably partly poisonous to some people. Thought to be mycorrhizal.

The Sulphur Tuft, Hypholoma fasciculare, From April through to the first heavy frosts, a walk in mixed woodland rarely fails to reveal Sulphur Tufts fruiting on fallen trees, decaying stumps or, occasionally, hollow trunks of living trees. This wood-rotting fungus is not a fussy feeder it tackles deciduous hardwoods as well as conifers apparently with equal relish, although it is most effective in rotting broadleaf trees (hardwoods), which generally have a higher cellulose content and rather lower lignin content than conifers.Sulphur Tuft is saprobic, feeding on stumps, felled trunks and other dead wood from broad-leaf trees and less commonly conifers. If you see tufts apparently growing in grass it is a certainty that buried roots or other timber and lying just beneath the soil surface. As the root systems of many broadleaf trees extend well beyond the leaf canopy, so also the Sulphur Tuft fungus can fruit quite a long way from the trunk of the decaying tree on which its mycellium is feeding.

The common Puffball, Lycoperdon perlatum. I originally thought this was the Stump Puffball, but was kindly corrected by Andy Overall. Common puffballs are saprotrophic and occur in all kinds of woodland, where they grow on the ground in leaf litter; also, less commonly, in permanent pasture and on sheep-cropped stable sand dunes. More often found in small groups rather than as singletons, the common puffball can occasionally branch like a desert cactus, but most are simple pear-shaped fruitbodies like those shown here.

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Dene Park, fungi

 The woods are wetting up well now, at least underfoot.

This is Yellow Stagshorn or Jelly Antler, Calocera viscosa, and I found it on an old stump which could have been Spruce, Douglas Fir or even possibly Yew. 

It does look like Calocera viscosa and as this is limited to conifers, it should be be on one of those three hosts. The fruiting bodies are generally seen on very rotted conifer trunks or logs, some of which may even lie buried in the woodland soil after years of decay.  This possibly fits in with a spruce blown over, say, in the 1987 storm. 

This is the anamorphic (asexual) state of Xylaria hypoxylon, the CandleSnuff Fungus just appearing on an old stump. 

 

This is Yellow Disco, Bisporella citrina, possibly, on a log, just by the east boundary path of Dene Park.

and two closer views, at different magnifications:

Bisporella citrina tends to be found during the second half of the year, generally on debarked logs, particularly beech, possibly oak, depending on which source you are looking at. There may be a few related species. 

Associated with wood-boring beetles, possibly because the beetle larvae, by the activity of their burrowing, assist in the removal of bark from the logs. Bisporella appears to be inhibited by tannins from the bark, which is why Bisporella is generally found on decorticated (de-barked) trunks and logs, . Perhaps reductions in insect numbers might reduce the ability of fungi like Bisporella to rot wood down. Maybe not a bad thing in today's scenarios.

Leafmines on Blackthorn

 Stigmella plagicolella, the "tadpole mine" on Blackthorn, Prunus spinosa, along the Access Trail. Frass filled trail suddenly expanding into a blotch mine, usually filled with dispersed granular frass. Larva is yellowish [with a brown head?]. The mine seasons are supposedly July [+ earlier?] and September - October. 

About 8 mines found by the time I got to the Red Pond, at least 3 of them with moving caterpillars inside.

False Brome, along the tracks of Dene Park.

False Brome, Brachypodium sylvaticum appears to be quite well distributed across the woodland tracks and paths.

While at first not very sure of it, I was eventually very happy with the identification. It was in the early flowering stage. I could see the spikelets quite round in cross-section, elongated and around 2 cm long. Each spikelet had a very short stalk indeed. The awns were about the same length as the individual flowers, more obvious when I spread the spikelet out.

The nodes and stems were softly hairy, the leaves were bristly (scaberulous, slightly rough to the touch), particularly the underside when rubbed towards the base. They were quite broad but narrowed obviously towards the sheath junction. The ligule was blunt and raggedy, a few mm long. A bright green is how I would describe the leaves, but in the image above it looks relatively glaucous. 

Flowering is stated to be late June onwards. Soils ideally calcareous, not very fertile, well drained. These characteristics seem to fit fairly well.  

  

Wood Melick in the Scambles of Dene Park

The Wood Melick grass or Melica uniflora is found in just one area in these woods as far as I know, in the Scambles, not too far from one of the Bourne tributary streams. The soil here seems drier and less clay-rich than other parts of the wood.

It would be useful to tie this down, particularly as this is a new record. It is a very beautiful plant with its nodding brown rice-shaped heads on the ends of the pedicels(?).

Generally thought to prefer poorer soils, it is usually found in discrete patches suggesting most propagation is via the rhizomes as opposed to seed.

The following day I found a few plants of viviparous Cocksfoot by the dog bin, in the central triangle of grass. Here the flower parts develop instead into leaves. I have never seen this before.

Dene Park still muddy - Enchanter's Nightshade

The Enchanter's Nightshade, Circaea lutetiana, is in full flower along the tracksides at the moment. This is a very common woodland plant throughout the UK except the north of Scotland. There is also an Alpine species found in upland woodlands. 

Apparently a traditional wound treatment. The Latin name is after Circe the Goddess of Magic, known for her knowledge of herbal medicine, and lutetiana referring to Paris or the botanists of Paris.

The delicate two-petalled whitish flowers are well spaced within each raceme. The flower stalk and the sepals are covered in long hairs.

Spreads by long thin vegetative stolons, as well as the fruiting burrs. Here is a picture of one of the typical patches of heart-shaped leaves topped by the tiny groups of flowers.

Solitary bees at Capel

 

On a full flowering Blackthorn on a walk around Capel, I found a few solitary bees. There was a drone fly as well, but I didn't ID that.

Here is the female bee, which might tentatively be identified as Andrena dorsata on the basis of the limited narrow hair fringes on the abdomen, the tawny hairs on the thorax - maybe white beneath, like the head hairs? Maybe the hairs on the legs are also a bit reddish, which should fit.

and here is a male which was close by, possibly an entirely different species, of which i couldn't begin to guess.