Ischnoderma benzoinum perhaps and Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa at Dene Park

 

A bit confused by these brackets: on one of the pine logs used as a car park divider at Dene Park, near Tonbridge. Pores about 3/mm but with no sign of mazegill structure, brackets relatively thin and sharp-edged, pores 5 mm long or less, mid-brown flesh, cap dark brown feeling a bit felty, with clearly obvious but thin whitish edge. No sign of yellowish colours. Creamy pore surface only gradually darkens to a tan brown when collected, does not quickly bruise.

The Coral Slime Mould Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa found on a fallen possibly hornbeam trunk of really well rotted wood looked amazing. 

The whiter outer surface is said to be fluffier as it is covered in the spores being released. 

The dead Elm on the Access Trail finally shows some more obvious fungal life!

 Very glad to finally find some fungal fruiting bodies on the long-dead Elm along the trail. 

First there was some lovely Wrinkled Peach, my first ever as far as I know, and gorgeously coloured, even if not obviously wrinkled. Closely associated with Elm - it is so satisfactory when things turn up exactly where they are supposed to be!

Secondly, the rather less attractive Tripe Fungus, Auricularia mesenterica, also closely associated with dead Elm. These fruiting bodies seemed rather old and dried out. 

Here is the underside of one section, coming back to life a little.

Also note the beetle holes in the log.

Alder Bracket, Mensularia radiata, confirmed

 

Returning to the waterworks by the stream in Dene Park, I was able to confirm that one of the Alders is well attacked by the Alder Bracket, Mensularia radiata, as suspected earlier in the year when I had seen the old decaying brackets. Great to have a guess turn out OK!

Green Elf Cup, Dene Park

Having found "Green Elf Club" staining on several fallen branches over the years I was very glad to finally find fruiting bodies on this particular one. Sadly these have dried out a little and the edges have started to turn in.

This could be Chlorociboria aeruginascens, the Green Elf Cup, or Chlorociboria aeruginosa, the Turquoise Elf Cup. The two species are indistinguishable except microscopically, eg on spore size. The apothecia, only a few mm across, usually have a very short stipe either centrally or laterally located, as seen here. C. aeruginascens tends to have a more lateral stipe than aeruginosa, but this is definitely not diagnostic. 

The underside of the apothecia are slightly bluer-green and more felty than the upper side, as in the First Nature description. This also mentions the fruit bodies falling sideways as they age.

The previous records for Dene Park only name C. aeruginosa, surprisingly as it is supposedly the rarer. This sample and the others could be either or both of those species.  

 

Queendown Warren

 

This looks to me like a typical mine of the Hawthorn Midget, Phyllonorycter corylifoliella (Hübner, 1796), tending to locate over the midrib or one of the main veins. A silvery surface to the mine with spirals or rings of brown specks of frass quite obvious, especially in comparison to the silvery mines of Phyllonorycter leucographella. This appears to be a very common mine, found a bit more often in East Kent than West Kent. The mines are found increasingly through the summer into the autumn. I found about a dozen possibles today, so why don't I see them at Dene Park? Is it because this is a moth that prefers more open woodlands? I have seen it around towards the gravel pits, so this seems possible. I should check the hedgerows perhaps.

This leaf seems to have a fairly thick frass-filled gallery leading to a blotch, which was now untenanted. There was an egg on the underside of the leaf. I came across about 5 similar mines at Queendown. Could this be Ectoedemia atricollis (Stainton, 1857), although it doesn't look much like some of the other examples I suspect to be this species, where the gallery follows the leaf margin closely and seems rather narrower.

 

These curled-over brown lobe tips look a bit like very old mines of Parornix anglicella (Stainton, 1850). 

Leafminers in Dene Park

Stigmella hemargyrella on Beech, the one with the egg away from the midrib.

Possibly the Pinch-barred Pigmy, Ectoedemia atricollis (Stainton, 1857) on Hawthorn, probably specifically the Midland Hawthorn, Crataegus laevigata. There are a number of other possibilities for the mine ID, and I could not find the larva to confirm or not. However one positive sign was that I did find the egg on the margin of the leaf on the underside, as expected for Ectoedemia atricollis. If correct, it is the first time I have seen it in Dene Park, but I may have come across it on a day a few years ago down by the gravel pits. This example would be quite an early date for mines of this species. The larva tends to form a corridor initially, which very often follows the margin of the leaf around, but eventually forms a blotch mine. as shown here This caterpillar can be found on other Rosaceous hosts, such as apple and cherry as well as hawthorn.

The Scarce Aspen Midget, Phyllonorycter sagitella,

 

On the Aspen semi-sapling to the east of the main path up from the dog-bin, about half a dozen mines, most vacated. This used to be a rare micro-moth in the UK, confined to the wetter west, although with quite a wide distribution across Europe, but has now spread extensively, with quite a few records in the Southeast, including Kent, with quite a few records on the Kent Moths Facebook page.

I suppose these could be the older mines of the first generation, as the pupae appear to have already hatched out into adults rather than overwintering as pupae, which I assume that they do? But are there genuinely two generations, KMG seem to suggest not?

Fascinating to see the split open pupal cases half projecting from some of the mines, indicating the departure of the next generation of adults.