Tony Hardware's Fungi Finds: Rare, Uncommon or New to UK!! Doesn't get much better than this. Oh, and a new species to science?

January proved to be a very successful month for finding all types of fungi, also one that was recorded on 20th Dec 2020 is reported here, as confirmation of a new species FOR THE UK takes time!!

Starting here, on a short walk pre-lockdown before Christmas on a footpath near Sladesbridge, just down the road from me, I spotted a couple of white looking agarics which at first I thought were crepidotus. I hadn't seen much except icicles forming inside my gloves so thought I had better check before calling it a day. Three weeks later I had my first Basidiomycetes new to the UK namely Mycena supina. Thanks to Alick Henrici of the Brit. Mycological Soc. who confirmed the species.

On a later trip to confirm the location of the above species, I also found the delightful hairy ascomycete Lasiobelonium variegatum. A trip to another local woodland at Bishop's Wood gained three species all of which were significant finds. I had decided to target the Spruce at the entrance to the woodland and just focus there. This paid off and I think I checked every good looking rotting branch in the wood. One small ascomycete I found in Anthostomella tomicoides on rubus proved to be my second record of this rare species and the same for Cornwall. On the same branch and centimetres away from each other, I found an Obilia type and Stactis type ascomycetes. Both proved difficult to identify, the first I thought was O. occinella, but when checking with Otto Baral's monograph on Oribiliomycetes I found this has been found only a few times on the Pacific Rim! He describes this species in Europe as O. eucalypti and this was confirmed by him direct to me later. So most authors and book wrongly depict this incorrectly as far as I am concerned as Otto is THE person for Orbilia and has named countless new species to science. Close to this was a Stactis type, but checking at home after microscopy proved to be inconclusive. Certainly not one of the recognised species known to me. Paul Cannon of Kew kindly checked this for me and after checking decided this was a probably new species to science and created a log of the species on Fungi of GB and Ireland for verification later. It wasn't a Stactis after all but it's close cousin Schizoxylon. Thinking of going somewhere different for a change, I went to a local reservoir where a spruce small woodland was deteriorating fast under a marshy grassy habitat. This led to finding a pale grey thin resupinate which I felt was worth checking under the scope, as usual. This turned into a Tubulicrinis species, with another Tubulicrinis within the same material!! Rare species anyway, but two in one. Amazing. After careful microscopy and checking once again with Alick Henrici these were identified as T. glebulosus and T. accedens. The latter a 1st for Cornwall and the former a 2nd for Cornwall after ... AlickH, found at The Lizard years before!