Trip down Marley Lane

To Haslemere today for lunch and, amazingly, after a particularly delicious plate of roast lamb and a glass of beaujolais (pronounced "bow - joll - iss" by Dad, because he has a reputation to maintain), I managed to convince my dear parents that they would REALLY like to spend Mother's Day afternoon wandering around Marley Common, looking at bits of dead wood.

Yes, Reader, I hail from Over The Border: Haslemere. Nestled up against Surrey's boundary with Sussex and Hampshire, people from Haslemere reach parts of Sussex that the Sussex-dwelling folk don't tend to get to very often. And so it was today: We headed south, out of Haslemere, to Marley Common. To Sussex! And the site of one of my earliest fungus forays.

In truth I never went 'up Marley' very often when I was growing up in Haslemere. Because, for a walk, it's just not quite as good as Black Down. But apparently it is rather good for fungi; so I've got a feeling I'll be spending a lot more time here in future...

We saw various aged bracket fungi which I moved swiftly past because I still have no idea what I'm doing with bracket fungi (other than saying, "yeah, I think it's Turkeytail," repeatedly, upon encountering almost every bracket fungus I see).

I attempted to impress Mum by showing her what-I-think-was Peniophora quercina, but she just thought it looked like a bit of dead bark. And I'm not sure excitedly pointing out that it was "SLIGHTLY CRAZED!" really convinced her of its fungal nature.

She was fairly impressed with these though. More tiny red beads!

 I'm going to go out on a limb here and say these may be the anamorph of another Nectria-like species – like what I found (and misidentified) in Hoe Wood the other week. It was growing on one of the upright branches of this fallen (birch?) tree:

Nick Aplin (Sussex Fungus Group) has said he'd be interested to receive collections like this from Sussex, so looks like I'll be down the Post Office again tomorrow.


For the record
Date: 06/03/2016
Location: Marley Wood
Grid reference (for the Nectria-like species): SU890309