Commemorative porcelain

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I decided to go and explore the woods around Henley, West Sussex, yesterday and take advantage of the royally nice weather.

Heading west from Bexleyhill, the wide sunny rides of Verdley Wood were abuzz with insects. But the predominantly coniferous woodland didn't present much mycological interest. On Henley Common the path emerges into an area of semi-natural ancient woodland, and it was here that I came across a large windblown Beech tree.

A solitary Porcelain Mushroom Oudemansiella mucida was growing on one of its huge boughs: a fitting piece of commemorative porcelain, as the Duke & Duchess of Sussex had just made it official over in Windsor Castle.

The trunk was adorned with some very grand and fresh-looking brackets – one of the Ganoderma species (G. applanatum or G. australe).

You can see their cocoa-coloured spores lightly dusting the trunk below.

As I walked on through the mixed woodland of Northpark Copse, I spotted a few dried-out old Birch Polypore Piptoporus betulinus and some ancient Turkeytail Trametes versicolour covering the odd log stack. That was pretty hard to get excited about.

Heading back through the southern part of Northpark Copse I found some more big old Beech trees, including several fallen trunks. One of these was well covered in bracket fungi.

Their uppersides were zoned in shades of cream and brown, stained green with algae.

The undersides displayed distinctly elongate pores.

This confetti-strewn pair reminded me of Meghan and Harry: the happy couple.

I think these must be Lumpy Bracket Trametes gibbosa, because of the elongate pores. Although they don't look very lumpy.

Further on I passed through some old Sweet Chestnut coppice and spotted this by the side of path.

A BEAUTIFUL BOUQUET!

We've evidently been having some great weather for Chicken of the Woods Laetiporus sulphureus.


For the record
Date: 19/05/2018
Location: Henley Common, West Sussex
Grid ref: SU890260 (O. mucida & Ganoderma sp.), SU8825 (T. gibbosa & L. sulphureus)



Records entered into FRDBI 07/09/2018