Junghuhnia (Steccherinum) nitidum

 

The colour of fresh crusts is a fairly distinctive salmon-pink. Perhaps the colour deepens to a light brick red if left to age? Older or damaged crusts may also perhaps be an angrier orange? The white margins are said to be persistent, and quite substantial and clear, sometimes a bit fringed apparently. Should be easily separable from its substrate according to Lassoe and Peterson, but not Kibby, who says it is firmly attached.

The pores are often angular or even labyrinthine, but usually look quite evenly spaced in my very limited experience. Sometimes angled if growing on upright or angled wood, perhaps gradually turning somewhat lacerated. Found on a wide range of fallen or still-attached dead deciduous wood. This looks as if it could be on Beech. As it dries it should turn from soft to brittle.

I've now found it a couple of times in Dene Park, while Hugill and Lucas have it as uncommon, 5 - 7 pores per mm with a somewhat musty smell they claim, which I haven't checked. 

Radulomyces molaris or Basidioradulum radula or Phlebia

 

Well, Crust ID was never going to be easy. Jasper says Radulomyces and Basidioradulum are macromorphologically indistinguishable, so I am still stuck, apart from my gut feeling, purely from on-line photos, that what I am usually finding is Radulomyces molaris, so should be on oak, as this might well be, as its in the oak compartment close to the car park..  

Fallen Beech at Eastry Picnic site a couple of days later

Dene Park fungi

 

Stereum sanguinolentum on the Douglas Fir in the car park. I think the browner crusts are younger ones, and that they will grey up in a few weeks or months. It would be great to check !

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.