Tony Hardware's Fungi Finds: Rare find at Hawkes Wood, Cornwall plus more ....December 2019

On the 4th December I elected to visit Hawkes Wood once again, which is the nearest wildlife reserve to where I live in Wadebridge. I didn't find much, but what I did helped claim a first for the South West of England and Cornwall. This came about after checking out a common crust species and then finding a psathyrella sps growing on wood debris nearby. This would normally be P. piluliformis but something suggested this looked different, with a slender stem and tightly straited cap. This was one for the microscope at home and after checking macro and microscopic detail this turned into Psathyrella laevissima or Slender Stump Brittlestem. The stem width was important as was the cap and small umbo with unusual cystidia making the final confirmation. Probably not as rare as suggested by this find and more than likely to be unrecorded as it appears like another LBM (little brown mushroom). Growing on wood (Hazel) of course helped greatly as did the very, very crowded gills. Also found on a small branch were tiny white mycena looking FB's which on closer inspection proved to be the delightful minute Hemimycema tortuosa, or Dewdrop Bonnet. These not showing any dew as perhaps seeing these late in the day, it was all dried up. A few days later I took my car for a service and while waiting for it to be finished I walked towards the local Truro Hospital, not for the usual reason but knowing they have a cafe! Just off the main road there are six/seven Silver Firs growing near the main entrance. To my surprise I spotted a very small Inocybe growing in the needle litter and nothing else. Once again microscopy needed here to confirm this fairly uncommon species as Inocybe cincinnata var. cincinnata or Collared Fibrecap. Few important ID finds were obtaining the yellowing of the walls of the cheilocystidia using KOH, crystals at the peaks of most cystidia and amygdaliform spores at ± 8.40µm x 5.87µm. The small size of the specimen and the <3mm stem suggested this wasn't I. cincinnata var. major, an alternative. So some good finds even in the middle of a wet and blustery winter.