Tony Hardware's Fungi Finds: March 2022

Once again a winter month proved interesting which supports the idea that if you put the mileage in, then the fungi turns up. Looking in the right places also helps and as February produced gales and wetter conditions this year then ascos and fungi on wooden and unusual substrates sometimes tends to produce unusual fungi. The first though was growing on a sodden rope by the River Frome, close to where I live! This showed itself to be Deconica horizontalis, a species I have seen twice before and for some reason most others in the UK have not ever seen at all. Growing on rope is a fairly usual substrate for this species but not many others, but I have found it on a waterlogged log in Wales and growing on my own damp and rotting window frame of my shed in Cornwall! I kept passing an avenue of Populus nigra near Cirencester and noticed a footpath ran directly between two rows either side. So I visited here after the gales had pushed all sorts of debris to the ground I found an anamorph of Cryptodiaporthe populea known as Discosporium populeum - only a few UK records. Whilst here, I also collected Lophiotrema rubi - again just a few records, one of which was mine as found in Cornwall also! Another oddity. To my surprise in the grass verge by the trees I spotted a few basidios, resembling Collybia type species growing close to the tarmac edge. Normally a walk by LBJ, but at this time of the year worth checking? Glad I did as I found a new to me in the delightful, almost single species genus, in Gamundia striatula, with heavily straited cap after moistened otherwise showing a whitish hygrophanous cap. The other important ID aspect is the spores are highly verrocose. At a short trip to Buckholt Woods near Birdlip, I spotted a few really minute (using an eyeglass) upright black domino shaped ascomycetes on rotting moss covered Fagus. Again under high magnification this became a lovely looking almost sci-fi monolith slab as Glphium elatum. See photo below - yes this is fungi! During a trip to Devon I managed to find time to visit Offwell Woods - mostly a wooded area of Scots Pine, which I always enjoy exploring. Here one or two ascos showed themselves in Hyaloscypha albohyalina and Leptosphaeria ogiliviensis. Lastly, making this a very worthwhile visit also was Orbilia auricolor. I visited a new woodland, in fact a Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust reserve at Lower Woods near Wickwar, in the south of my new county of Gloucestershire. I always wanted to come here but found more on the surrounding approach footpaths than I did actually within the reserve itself. Perhaps the density of cut-back Ash and young Hazel didn't help and was surprised not to see a lot more Oak and Beech as this site is promoted as a ancient woodland. On an approach and very waterlogged footpath approaching from the west I found an uncommon asco in Patellaria atrata and resupinate Vuillemania coryli - the latter on Corylus!