Tony Hardware's Fungi Finds: DECEMBER - Uncommon to rare species recorded this month

A visit during the early part of December to Dorset and then to Chiesel Beach allowed me to check under Tamarisk very close to the sea. Under a branch I found what appears to be a Mollisia species which I couldn't identify and has gone for sequencing, which I expect to report on next month. Unusual substrate, perhaps an unusual species. At Cirencester Park I found Amphinema byssoides, showing encrusted cystidia well, this being the 4th Gloucs. record. While there I heard gunshots very close to where I was walking and decided best to leave rather than be misidentified as a vertically walking deer. It's the way I walk. During a short trip to an old hunting ground at Ebworth I was rewarded with Aphanobasidium pseudotsugae (4th Gloucs) along with an unusual coelomycete embedded in Resupinatus applicatus (basidio) being Cucurbidothis pithyophila. This would be only the 4th UK record for this species. Only spores seen, but clearly. In Pope's Wood I found the unusual resupinate with transverse basidia in Helicogloea lagerheimii, a 1st for Gloucs. all other interesting records were from two visits to Flisteridge Woods in North Wiltshire, a new favourite site of mine. It appears the soil is richer here with many oak and birch trees, limestone free and providing species not seen in and around Stroud. In good condition was Badhamia utricularis, not that uncommon but very attractive appearing like hanging bunches of grapes. Botryobasidium candicans had to be checked carefully and the nearest I could match the spores and basidia size. 2nd Wilts. Hyphoderma cremeoalbum on oak was found in a large area across a trunk of one tree, a 1st for Wilts. Another myxo also not that rare but found here was Physarum leucophaeum where I found it in three different stages of growth and so inc. here. On a holly branch I identified another coelomycete in Pyrenochaeta ilicis, which is normally found on leaves only of this tree. 2nd record for Wilts. Again not that uncommon but the substrate it was using was as Sistotrema brinkmannii was growing across the surface of moss on an Oak trunk. Lastly, a new species for Wiltshire was found, a single example was growing on an oak branch and proved to be Resupinatus europaeus. So the year ended and looking at my life records I noted that 254 new species for Gloucs have been recorded, 1,800 species have been entered on the BMS FRDBI database (double that inc. substrates) since 2014 and with an identified 1,720 species being recorded to date. Well a blog is all about me, so forgive the number bore, but it makes my life tick a great deal more than it ever did when I was birdwatching for 16 years, although that had incredible experiences also :-) This month also saw a paper I co-authored with Jacques Fournier and David Harries reproduced in Field Mycology and our new for Western Europe genus Spirodecospora being described as well as being illustrated on the front cover. A very satisfying December!! Pity about the state of the world, politics and religions but at least fungi are reliable and will be there next year and long after I have made my exit. God save the King ... and fungi.