Tony Hardware's Fungi Finds: July 2020

Saturday, 18 July 2020

Summer lock-down producing even more interesting species - Part 2

On a trip locally again, this time to the area around Old Town Cove on the camel estuary, I discovered the unusual large spored resupinate Aleurodiscus aurantius and where it tends to grow on slender Rubus stems. Common name of Brier Disco for some reason. Nothing round about it until you see the spores! Amazing. At a home day with boredom a threat I thought why not check out old stems of garden plants, the ones that you never see in books or fungi quotes. Checking a odd-looking grass-like species which I later discovered was Miscanthus sinensis or Chinese Silvergrass (has a thin white sliver running through the centre of the leaf) I found tiny asco type species on last year's stems. On careful checking and with assistance from esteemed experts (thanks to Pauline Penna/Paul Cannon) I was able to claim this as Anthostomella tumulosa, probably the first noted find in the field in the UK - from my back garden!! There must be a great deal more species on garden plants out there and shouldn't be neglected just because they are domesticated. Fungi doesn't pre-select wild from garden, so I'll be looking harder in future. I'll probably restrict myself crawling around garden centres etc besides they are mostly new growth and you really need old. A trip to Little Petherick again provided some interesting ascos again. The main find though was a beautiful and uncommon species which turned into Leucoagaricus sublittoralis at home. Only few in SW England recorded. The ascos were Mazzantia angelicae and Diaporthe varians, both uncommon. A further visit the following day provided resupinate Exidiopsis calcea and asco discomycete Hyalorbilia inflatula - rarely reported but I'm sure this is neglected as looks like common disco fungi. Lastly, for this report and this was on 13th July 2020, I visited Par Market to check on some Amanitas I spotted before and found a pair rare Amanita franchetii fungi happily growing on a grassy knoll at the side of the car park. This will be the 3rd record for Cornwall, with the 2nd found the day before by a group member 30 miles away! My final visit was to a new favourite location for me which is Tredinnick Pits at NE Redmoor NR, near St Austell. Here I found an innocuous looking erupting asco on oak. Deciding that it looked slightly different it turned into a rare species for the UK, probably only 3/4th record with most other records from Cornwall. This was confirmed by Kew as being Amphirosellinia evansii. Great day all round and an amazing summer so far, considering we haven't even started the season yet!

Aleurodiscus aurantius

Amanita franchetii

Amanita franchetii spores

Amphirosellinia evansii - 3/4th UK

Amphirosellinia evansii spores

Anthostomella tumulosa spores 1st UK

Anthostomella tumulosa

Diaporthe varians

Diaporthe varians spores

Exidiopsis calcea hypobasidia

Exidiopsis calcea

Hyalorbilia inflatula asci

Hyalorbilia inflatula

Leucoagaricus sublittoralis cystidia

Leucoagaricus sublittoralis

L. sublittoralis spores

Mazzantia angelicae

Friday, 17 July 2020

Summer early lock-down local walks still finding rare or uncommon fungi - Part 1

Continuing on from my last report I was able to venture out under the legal requirements of coping with Covid-19 and even better, as being on my own and in wilder places allowed even more interesting fungi to be found. I won't elaborate to much as I normally drone on perhaps too much how I came across species, so I'll just get on with the reporting.

Breney Common - on Bamboo. On a single dead cane presented interesting species on the same substrate which turned out to be very unusual rare species for the UK as well as Cornwall. With the help of AscoFrance colleagues these were Apiospora montagnei in arthrinium state plus Arthrinium arundinus.
Bodmin Nursery - on very old central Salix babylonica var. pekinensis (uncommon-not for sale!) - or Corkscrew Willow - Drepanopeziza sphaerioides - 6th UK/1st Cornwall.
Ladock NR: On Rosebay Willowherb - Pezizella punctoidea - 1st SW England. "Er Dad what's that man doing in those weeds - Move on son!"
Treraven Woods: Favourite local patch came across under Ash as a squashed toffee-like ascomycete of which I had no idea what this could be. After a great deal of checking and with the help of my colleagues in France, they led me to a new Hypoxlon for SW England in H. cercidicola. After thinking this was a first for the UK I found out that the European specify the species is ending with ...dicolum. Pulse returned to normal when finding out from Paul Cannon (Kew) the real identity and taxonomy spelling.
During my first visit to the delightful Tredinnick Pits at the NE end of Redmoor NR, I located quite a few ascos the best being Pseudovalsa lanciformis.
A quick trip to the zoo also produced some interesting species (Exmoor Zoo) with an common Inocybe appearing just before the Beast of Bodmin cage. This came out as Inocybe hirtella var. hirtella. Moving onto another new location but still close to me was the trail at Little Petherick village NW trail. I only need the first 200 metres to find among the many Wild Angelica the rare rust fungi Puccinia angelicae - probably 1st for Cornwall. Getting towards the end of the month and really abiding by the lock-down I took my wife to Tesco's, as you do. While waiting in the car (I did the shopping for two mths before this!!) I strode out across the car park and after careful checking found an Eutypa species, again with expert help, the nearest I could get to was probably E. leprosa. Great find and 3rd in Cornwall.
Lastly, on this Part 1 report of the summer mths. I visited Pentewan Beach for the first time and some interesting ascos were located. Not rare but, very often neglected as so small, minute hairs on stems of old herbaceous plants Periconia byssoides was discovered. They are very common but almost invisible! Part 2 follows.