Tony Hardware's Fungi Finds: MAY 2026 - Uncommon to NEW species!! for the UK.

Well, May will go down as one of those months Field Mycologists like me will remember for a long time. Thanks to a misidentified asco in April, now sequenced became new for the UK as well as a Mollisia lookalike just a few kilometres from home, became another new genus and species for the UK also. Starting with something in the back garden this time found on a dead branch of Honeysuckle. Camarops tublina. 1st record for Gloucs. Back at Flisteridge woods with Richard Huggins on a decort. conifer branch I found ex-Nectria Cosmospora viridescens. 1st for Wilts/21 other records in UK. Also here and for my second time on a very burnt Betula branch Sistotremastrum suecicum, but still 7th rec. in UK! Growing on a resupinate Botryobasium aureum was Pyrenopeziza benesuada, noting yellowing under KOH at the tips of the paraphyses. Apparently a VU under the red list. Surprising, seen a few times, probably incorrect, here 1st Wiltshire. At my local patch Capel's Mill, a footpath goes north along the River Frome. This would herald an extraordinary find but first I collected Diaporthe decedens on a Corylus twig. The spores are almost uniquely 2-guttulate but centralised in each cell. A further walk and about to turn back (how often does this happen to me!) when I thought I would take one last look under a very old rotting log by a riverside pond. Here under a large moss covered Acer species I found what appeared to be a large discomycete, probably a Mollisia. After microscopy and consulting Hans-Otto Baral (German eminent mycologist in this class of fungi) it was almost easily detected as Peltigeromyces mollisioides. Only recently being identified in Europe. This would be a new genus and so species for the UK. I sent this for sequencing and intend to write this up in due course. The spores are incredible as being one of the smallest spores in the microfungi world of ascomycetes. 2.7 - 3.5 µm length!! Back home I was about to throw out a dying indoor plant but as it was Bamboo I always check for fungi, most do not. Here I found Eupropolella arundinariae on Dracaena sanderiana, or Twisted Lucky Bamboo from Waitrose! By invitation, I was asked to take part in Hartpury Univ's BioBlitz. Not a great time for basidiocarps but still managed a few, but at the start of my searching I found tucked under a pile of twigs a pulvinate type grey uninspiring myxomycete, which had me immediately baffled. After consulting out County Recorder John Holden he helped decipher this as being Diderma chondrioderma and would be 4th in England/13th UK record. So May was already good - more to come!! Also at Hartpury was Hymenoscypus repanda with few Gloucs. records, most I suspect are incorrect, this being submerged at the edge of a lake. One of the few genera that survive this way. On an Ash leaf was Hysterobrevium mori - 1st for Gloucs. A trip up towards the Severn, near Upper Frimilode village, the footpath offered up Phragmites to check. Here on dead stems I found Morenoina phragmites (7th UK rec.) my spores being a little larger than the literature but everything points to this species, or its new. Also on Common Reed was the anamorph state Myrothecium atroviride (5th UK). Remember, I am no miracle worker, it's just field mycologists just don't bother with the little things in life, but miss out on some of the biggest surprises in the fungi world. Again with Richard this time ending up at Ravensroost Woods (Wilts) on a discarded manure/grass rotting mound found Peziza fimeti. This would be 1st for Wilts. A short visit to Cirencester Woods under Fagus I found Sirobasidium brefeldianum and would be 5th UK record. The surface very unusually like multiple tiny cushions. Lastly, I go back to the reidentification from last month of incorrectly proposing Didymosphaeria oblitescens and with DNA now new for the UK in Valsaria spartii. Rarely seen even in Europe except around the Med. area. This has red/brown 2-celled verruculose spores and is quite different from other Diaporthe species as long as you know where to look. Thanks to David Harries for the sequencing work (Pembroke). This was on Rubus branch at a hotel ground in Barnstaple, Devon! Whew. June must be quieter than this.