A few fungi from Fox Wood

 

There were a few fungi along the path into Fox Wood, including this Hornbeam trunk with some quite extensive but largely dried up crusts of the Silverleaf Fungus, Chondrostereum purpureum. The crusts were partly resupinate, partly reflexed. The effect was very similar to Stereum crusts, and that was what I thought I had found, but one thing that struck me at the time was the obviously whitish upper surface visible on the reflexed portions. This was reasonably hairy but the hairs were still obviously white. Stereum species upper surfaces are generally grey to brown, or rather darkened. 

A couple of what appeared to be more recent crusts were distinctly more purple in the captured images (below) than to the eye, and when I saw the final one, it finally clicked that I was looking at Chondrostereum, not a Stereum species. 

When rubbed to check for "bleeding", a dark smear appeared - the dark region below the context possibly?  This was also fairly clearly visible in cross section. The habitat is a reasonable fit - a preference for newly dead wood is mentioned in Laessoe and Peterson, as found here.

A little further on, there was a more obviously decayed trunk of another Hornbeam multistem, with extensive fungal fruiting, in this case I thought of Schizopora paradoxa, the Split Porecrust.

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?

Hesketh Park, Dartford

Aulagromyza hendeliana (Hering,1926)

On Snowberry on the path beside the M25 approach to the Dartford crossing. Very obvious very white mine against the green of the leaf. Quite a few leaves, each with single mines, on the one bush I looked at.

The trees are of interest in Hesketh Park. Here is a fairly newly planted Field Maple, Acer campestre. Interesting questions could be asked about the planting technique and maybe the weed control.

Honey and smoke, Dunorlan Park

 

Possible Honey Fungus, Armillaria mellea or another Armillaria species.

Smoky Bracket, Bjerkandera adusta in numbers, on a trunk between the cafe and the playground. Saprobic on dead hardwood, and very occasionally on dead conifers. Even in my very limited experience, this is a a fungus that has a huge variety of different forms and appearances and can consequently be very confusing and difficult to identify. Here, the contiguous groups of brackets separated from each other look very unusual at first sight, almost a number of brackets forming on a larger resupinate plate, but a Google search suggests that this is one of the characteristic growth patterns of this species in at least one phase of its growth. Compare with the observation on the 15th February, 2024 at Dene Park, where it looks as though the brackets are just beginning to form on a smaller resupinate plate. 

This particular trunk looks a bit sycamore-ish, but unfortunately I couldn't identify the host tree reliably. 

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.