Holly Hill

 

A lovely woodland walk with Mark Pritchard.

There were some amazing trees, including a few giant Beeches. This one had dropped a very large branch, with Beech Tarcrust and also this Mazegill bracket fungal fruiting body on it. So far nothing seems to fit as far as an ID goes!

The underside of the Mazegill,

And a more closely cropped view

and the upper surface of the brackets, felt dry and a bit fluffy:

Here are some pictures of the tree, the first taken against the morning light from the North:

The main trunk

A closer view of the basal cavity

Coleophora species on Hawthorn

 

I have been able to find a few larval cases on Hawthorn, mainly Crataegus monogyna or the hybrid I think. The ones I found look similar to each other and are I am afraid unidentifiable down to species, but they are still fascinating to see, so here is a picture that I was quite pleased with, not the one taken with the phone!

 

Wet Beech trees

Chilton Magic Garden

Peniophora cinerea on dead Ash

 

On some of the dead young Ash trees at Hucking there was a grey crust. The characteristics were firstly there was no obvious differently coloured margin, which was also quite sharply edged and adhering closely to the bark (adnate). The colouration of the thin dry crust was what I would call dove grey. Much of the surface of the crust was criss-crossed with small jagged cracks (it was "ribose") which would have appeared as it dried out, so that it appeared quite scaly.

I also found something similar on some of the coppiced regrowth, on stools deeper in the woods.

 

Alder Bracket, Mensularia radiata I think

 

Very old, broken down Alder Bracket at the corner of Dene Park where the pipe inlet is, and there is a small collection of tall Black Alder trees by the side of the stream. The remnants of the brackets were exactly where the books predicted, on a dead standing Alder trunk. One of the photos in the TMA Fungi App is quite similar. However this identification was largely based on eliminating other possibilities - in other words, "what else could it be"?

The caps are more or less correct, assuming that the pores beneath have been largely eroded (worn away), and the confluence of the remaining material looks fairly typical, The flesh of the annual brackets is said to be at first soft, but becomes hard, woody and red-brown as the brackets age, as I have assumed is the case here.

The name has been regularly changed and Inonotus radiatus is still very commonly used in the reference books. The BMS recognises it as Mensularia radiatus. TMA Fungi has it, somewhat unusually, in its latest iteration, Xanthoporia radiata (Sowerby) P. Karst. 

Could this be a much less decayed version, on a nearby trunk, or is it something else entirely? 

(confirmed at the end of October, when fresher)

 

Lumpy Brackets and Smoky Brackets at Ellington Park, Ramsgate

 

This appears to be Trametes gibbosa, the Lumpy Bracket, on a stump at Ellington Park, Ramsgate. Identified, with "some trepidation" through the ID apps, but it does look very possible. 

 

To my surprise, this appears to be very well developed brackets of Bjerkandera adusta, Smoky Bracket, on the large branch of an unknown tree in Ellington Park.

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.