Weather was so uninviting I nearly stayed in and glossed some door frames today. But anything is more interesting than that, so I went for a walk in the woods instead.
I ended up in Hoe Wood again, for a third time, trying to re-find some tiny pink blobs I'd seen bursting through hazel bark. There's a chap in the Sussex Fungi Group, Nick Aplin, who has said he'd be interested to receive collections like this - apparently it's an example of a Nectria-like species (not a young Hypoxylon, as I'd originally hypothesised). Anyway, I didn't find them.
BUT, I did find another colony of Spring Hazelcup Encoelia furfuracea, here:
Today's find takes the total number of sites for this rare species around Small Dole to THREE. And look, I've put them on this map, and you can click on the dots to see my photos:
I've looked for Spring Hazelcup in Tottington Wood as well, to the south of Small Dole, but so far without any luck. Much of Tottington Wood is actively coppiced by the Tottington Woodlanders and there isn't so much old and decaying hazel there as there is at the other sites - so it could be that the habitat's not suitable. But I shall keep looking!
Hi Clare, just wanted to say Thank You for posting this information about the Spring Hazelcups. It was one Dawn and I have been wanting to see, but not able to find her in Sussex. Thankfully you were very open to providing the OS locations, though it took us two attempts to finally find them :-)
ReplyDeleteCheers
Dawn & Jim Langiewicz
if you are interested, our images of this are posted here
Deletehttps://flic.kr/p/DvFRoL
Hello, is this the same Dawn & Jim Langiewicz whose photograph of Geastrum britannicum recently featured in The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-year-in-fungi-2015)??? Welcome!
DeleteSo glad you enjoyed seeing the Spring Hazelcups in Small Dole and thank you for sharing your fabulous photographs.
Did you find it in the same sites indicated above, or somewhere else?
Hi Clare, yes they were in the same places, two groups in the wood and one set on the path across towards the farm.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes we are that Jim&Dawn and surprised you even saw that article in an American website. It's our best find ever in Sussex and we worked directly with Martin Allison on it when we first found it and he came out to sample it.
Cheers
J&D
Ah yes, well I'd read about it in Martin's article in Adastra - the review of wildlife recording in Sussex in 2015 (http://sxbrc.org.uk/biodiversity/publications/Adastra2015/) - and then I happened to see The New Yorker article on Twitter when the BMS tweeted about it. Good work!
DeleteThanks for the info on your sightings.