Tony Hardware's Fungi Finds: Breney Common and woodland, Nr Lanivet, Cornwall

I had originally targeted visiting a quarry just north of Luxulyan as my interpretations on the map suggested a nice area to explore. To my dismay on arrival the whole area was sectioned off as a paint-ball exercise area and any intrusions you would be shot on sight. So, noticed there is Breney Common Nature Reserve belonging to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust just north of here so not being there before it looked a good option. I wasn't to be disappointed as not only is the location excellent with wetlands, swampy areas and close by a gorse common provided new sightings for me and Cornwall! Moving through a swampy area holding all types of trees I came upon a vertical cluster of bracket fungi, unusual in the way it adhered to the substrate and proved to be Phellinus pomaceus. Moving further through the delightful old rotting wood area and checking on some red blobs under a stump I found a first for me, although fairly common in the right habitat, and this was perfect. The turned out to be Scutellinia scutellata or Eyelash Fungus with amazing long black hairs on the margins of the cup shaped fungus. Moving further along into a more open grassy, boardwalk through ponds and wetlands area, (doesn't get much better than this) I came upon a few agarics, still unusual for this time of the year. These turned out to be ground growing Polyporus durus or Bay Polypores, where the spore producing underside is pore rather than gill based. Finally, I drifted onto the Common hopeful of something new for the year as I hadn't frequented a Heathland/Common area for years. Within a few meters of each other I found two highly unusual species, the first a small orange cup type ascomycete appeared on top of some cattle dung. On closer inspection, and er... not taking too long, I observed a similar fungus to the Eyelash as seen before but the colour change and different type of margin hairs being white suggested something new. After spore tests and hyphae etc at home this turned out to be the first record for Cornwall I could find for Cheilymenia stercorea. Lastly, I turned over a burnt gorse or oak branch and found several small almost asco type fungi underneath except each had a small foot to the substrate and the surface was of a resupinate merulioid structure. After careful elimination and spore tests it was identified as Phlebia rufa, where, in its young form, produces small circles.

The following day I was in North Cornwall and on the South West Coastal path for a few miles and came across an early Entoloma sericeum or two. Also known as Silky Pinkgill. Nice to see as this genus is one of my favourites and first time I was able to extract a spore photo of this genus.