Tony Hardware's Fungi Finds: May 2022

Well I thought March was good for the time of year, but April looks even better. Obvious mix of ascomycetes and quite a few rare resupinates located. At Leigh Woods on the north west side of the Avon River in Bristol I had a couple of hours while my wife was shopping at Carrs Causeway! Nice place.... I found a wonderful large ancient Taxus woodland within the main mixed woodland, obviously very old, it's not seen very often. I focused on this area but found under an isolated Tilia (Lime) tree a host specific erect fingered asco in Amphiporthe hranicencis. New for Gloucs, and only few other UK records. Also here under Taxus this time a tiny cluster of very odd looking cylindrical vertical white 'pipes'. Took me some time to recognise these come under the family of Cyphelloids and known as Henningsamyces candidus. Not that common. Lastly, before I found out the potentially horrendous shopping bill I found under Taxus again a woolly fragile white resupinate. Anything under Yew I am interested in and this proved the case as Trechispora minima was discovered at home with small ornamented spores and swollen hyphae, a typical feature of this genus. Taking a trip out north from Stroud I aimed for Tunley and Hillhouse Woods for the first time, what seemed like ancient woodland proved correct and again had very old Yew stands with Beech on a hillside. Looking not that exciting a resupinate when found but was orange, I decided I should check this one. It turned rapidly deep purple in KOH, has small curved allantoid spores and no clamps. This proved to be a rarely recorded Ceriporia aurantiocarnescens - 3rd record for UK!! I put some material in my personal fungarium, now up to almost 100 species. Maybe one day someone at Kew will have nothing else to do but look at all the uncommon species I have kept over the last few years! Another unusual resupinate was found under Taxus again. This time proving a little confusing with its very long cystidia looking like nothing I could find. Step in Alicki Henricki from B.M.Soc. and it was identified as Stypella dubia, or renamed as in the old taxonomy of Heterochaetella dubia. Few records in Gloucs. Walking alongside a private man-made lake near the woods on a small Hedera creeper/branch, I spotted a few very small black ascos. Nothing new there except these were perfectly half-spherical and I'Ded as Microthyrium falgeoletii. Close to here on a woodchip pile I came across a single Peziza type asco, and after careful study showed itself to be Pezizia repanda. Not that uncommon but good to find all the same. I wasn't finished as under Fagus, an obscure looking waxy (let's not bother) type showed amazing cystidiols with almost odd looking caps at the tips. Unmistakably, this had to be the rarely recorded Xenasma pruinosum. Delightful. This was the month of unusual resupinates, while at Hailey Woods, Nr Cirencester on Abies alba I found a thin grey looking loose fungus which again I would have ignored just a few years ago. The fact that I had tried to turn over the branch covered with moss and probably was years old where it broke into two under the stress of turning and showed internal fungi! The material showed an abundance of crystallized looking needles and with the spiny spores and size became the rarely reported Trechispora praefocata. What was astonishing was finding a very small segment under the scope of the same mystery resupinate I reported last month AGAIN!! which has gone for DNA testing as unknown! Well twice that is. At a day out at Ardley Arboretum in Worcs. and again under Taxus, I found a group of delightful star fungi or Geastrum. These were Geastrum pectinatum. A short trip back into my past in Bucks in Aylesbury led me to the River Thame, an old hunting ground with abundant Willow, etc. Here on dead Wild Teasel I found 100s of tiny ascos (dots) on a stem of this plant. Was this fungus? Yes, Mycosphaerella sagedioides, a specific host to this plant. 4th record for UK!! I had better stop there as I can feel you and me yawning ... but I did have others.