Tony Hardware's Fungi Finds: January 2022

The weather being fairly kind this month helped keep the frosts away and so allowed more fungi to flourish. Almost all species found this month that are normally difficult to find were found in Cirencester Park. This is a magnificent large area full of mixed woodland, parkland grasses etc., with generous access from the owners. One oddball fungus I found last month I thought wasn't fungi at all. I discovered its name after coming across a photo in Fungi of Temperate Europe. One of the most recent and prolific fungi books on the market today. This was Bactridium flavum - looks like a collection of glass beads gathered together in small spheres on wood - but aren't. The only other species I found outside of the Park was when raking my back lawn!! Not only was this a rare event in itself, but to dredge up a very rare fungus in Pluteus exiguus was even a bigger event. This is a very small but has a hirsute or just call it hairy cap, but can only be ID'ed by microscopy as two others are very similar and marginally slightly more common. I made my decision based on shapes of cystidia, spore size and most importantly the length of the sub-terminal cells in the pileipellis. Back to Cirencester Park. I have a favourite spot and one I chose now as being coniferous as this time of the year I find you don't have to wade through tons of leaves from broadleaf trees, as so it transpired as I found many different and new species for me and in some cases for the county and wider. A couple of Cortinarius started the day well - C. acutus showing a sharp pointed umbo or papillate peak and C. semisanguineus with gorgeous dark red cap and gills. Next up was a very unusual Galerina looking like most Collybia species you would ignore. Growing here and after studying this became G. sideroides. This has a distinctive white patchy stem. Up next came an often dismissed species as common G. penetrans but was a large grouping of Gymnopilus sapineus which has a paler yellow margin and more fibrously scaly cap. New for me was many small white fungi growing under Larix debris and within grass was Hemimycena lactea, easily dismissed as a small white job. A resupinate found on a rotting but very old single Salix tree, which looked as though it had seeded or planted many years ago by a pond which has long disappeared. This turned out to be a rarely recorded Sistotremastrum niveocremeum, which looks like 20 other resupinates but microscopically can be defined through clamp size and spore shape/size. Last up, was a influx of Inocybe species I have never seen before in one place, although a recent trip to study fungi on the Isles of Scilly came close. Seven in all, four described here as these are rare to uncommon. Inocybe cincinnata var. major was seen often, varying in size with a whopper (non-technical term for the purists) up to 7cm tall, unusual in Inocybe. Inocybe muricellata was a nice find as was the much darker and smooth capped Inocybe nitidiuscula. Lastly, was a rare gem which under microscopic scrutiny proved to be as close as I could get to Inocybe furfurea (5th UK record from FRDBI data) and no other came close. Detail report under my records for any members reading this! The other species were I. sindonia, I. geophylla and I. flocculosa. All under Abies alba. Some day out and this was only 3hrs. inc. hot coffee was good also, sitting under fir trees with the sun drifting through, quite warm, no wind, no dog walkers, nobody in fact and Inocybes all around me all saying to me - go on, I bet you can't work me out.