Unique Aotearoa

Fungus observations from AOTEAROA | NEW ZEALAND

Image borrowed from www.landcareresearch.co.nz.

Mid-December, I was tripping over the ocean to where the weather suits my clothes and the money suits my interests.

New Zealand is (according to Landcare Research) the only country in the world to feature fungi on a banknote. The timing of our trip wasn't ideal for an encounter with Werewere-kōkako | Entoloma hochstetteri, but I hoped I might still stumble across this sky-blue beauty in the wilds of New Zealand.

We headed south, to Stewart Island, where we were tramping the Rakiura Track by day and searching for kiwi at night.

Being surrounded by thick, tangled wildness was quite the experience. Lush ferns and mosses all seemed new to my eyes. The trees too were unfamiliar.

Being summer, fungi were fairly few and far between. But this mushroom looked like it should be 'do-able', with its hairy cap and spotted brown gills.

New Zealand-based mycologist Jerry Cooper, over on iNaturalist, tells me that this shaggy-capped mushroom is Lacrymaria asperospora, a species found in Australia and New Zealand. I can definitely see the resemblance to Weeping Widow Lacrymaria lacrymabunda which I've come across before in Sussex.

From Stewart Island we took the ferry across to Ulva Island with Matt Jones from Ulva's Guided Walks. Ulva Island has never been milled and has been pest-free for over 20 years – which makes it a truly wonderful place to see and hear New Zealand's wildlife. Matt's a great guide and clearly knows Ulva like the back of his hand, which gave us a great opportunity not only to see many of the incredible species which live here, but also understand a bit about the habitat and ecology.

As we watched a Kaka sidling up a nearby branch, my eyes alighted on a tree trunk which – through binoculars – looked to be covered in white spots. A fungus?

Looking behind me, I saw that several trees had this same fungus on them. But only the red trees.

Matt had explained that these red trees were tōtara, a podocarp tree that is unique to New Zealand.

Looking closely, I saw that the white spots were actually little upside-down cups, each less than a centimetre across.

From above they looked like little mushroom-caps.

But a quick look underneath revealed... no gills! They were completely smooth inside.

Remembering Peter Smith's talk at the BMS Fungus Study Week, it occurred to me that this must be a 'cyphelloid' fungus: one of that relatively small, now known to be taxonomically diverse, group of basidiomycetes (spore-dropping fungi) with weird disc-, tube- or cup-shaped fruit bodies.

Having found a weird fungus, growing on an endemic tree, I thought I might get a decent shot at identifying this one. So I had to ignore the Kaka for a moment, and the South Island Saddlebacks hopping past, to get some photos.

The Landcare Research website has a handy guide to cyphelloid fungi occurring in New Zealand, here. This led me to the genus Calyptella and I soon discovered there is a species of Calyptella which is "common on two endemic species of Podocarpus, called tōtara by the Maori...": C. totara. Bingo!


In the Department of Conservation visitor centre in Oban, on Stewart Island, I'd seen a leaflet for iNaturalist. So I thought I'd upload my observation and see if I could get it confirmed. That very same day, I got a response from Jerry Cooper who agreed that my observation should be identified as C. totara.

Jerry was kind enough to explain that C. totara is unmistakeable, providing the cup doesn't have any gills or wrinkles. Apparently phylogenetic studies have shown that it isn't related to Calyptella capula, which is common in the UK, and in fact sits somewhere among Gymnopus sensu lato, but is yet to be moved into an appropriate genus. More on this in Jerry Cooper's Mycological Notes 31 on Gymnopus and Allies.

I was curious to know if this species had been recorded before from Ulva Island, so looked it up on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and found just one, from 1954, recorded by a 'Dingley, JM'. Who was this person, in whose footsteps I was following over 60 years later?

It wasn't very hard to find out. Googling 'JM Dingley mycologist' takes you straight to the wikipedia page for Joan Marjorie Dingley OBE (14 May 1916 – 1 January 2008), a mycologist and plant pathologist who was among the first female professionals in plant science in New Zealand. There is also a short biography on the Global Plants database on JSTOR. I was fascinated to read about this woman who began her career with the Department of Industrial Science and Research during World War 2, working on finding ways to mould-proof tents and radio equipment for use in the Pacific theatre of war, and went on to become a world authority on the Hypocreales. Her legacy includes the 'Joan Dingley Memorial Scholarship in Mycology' which was created to support high achieving Masters Students in the field of mycology at Massey University. She is also remembered at the University of Auckland:

To celebrate the 125th anniversary of suffrage in Aotearoa-New Zealand (19-25th Sept), @ScienceUoA will temporarily adopt names of some of our esteemed women alumni. The School of Biological Sciences will become 'The Joan Marjorie Dingley School of Biological Sciences' #mycology pic.twitter.com/58pFmnp6zx

— Margaret Stanley (@mc_stanley1) September 10, 2018

Nice to know my record of Calyptella totara is now up on GBIF, next to hers.

With thanks to Matt Jones for identifying the substrate for me, and Jerry Cooper for confirming the identification – helping me make sense of this strange land!