After a couple of days of rain (at last!) I made a bee-line for the woods on Saturday, to see if the conditions had brought out any fungi.
It wasn't long before I came across this young Beefsteak Fungus Fistulina hepatica, looking positively bloody where some woodland creature had evidently had a tasty bite out of it.
I came across more Beefsteak Fungus F. hepatica growing on several of the big oak trees, throughout the wood. The others were more mature – so had perhaps begun to fruit before Friday's epic downpours.
Deep in the wood, I came across this gorgeous bracket fungus, at the base of an oak tree. My photo doesn't really do it justice.
The upper surface was orange-brown and its most striking feature was the velvety margin studded with dark amber guttation droplets. Underneath, the pores appeared bright white in the dappled light; but now I come to examine the sample I collected, they look more buff-coloured.
Inside, the slightly spongy, fibrous flesh is a rich brown colour. When I came to look at it this morning, I found that downy white mycelium had begun to grow over the cut surface.
I think what I've got here is Oak Bracket Pseudoinonotus dryadeus.
In another part of Hoe Wood, the Dryad's Saddle Polyporus squamosus had also returned – a week or two back – on the same tree where I found it in 2016 (here).
The fungus gnats were having a field day.
This Oak Curtain Crust Hymenochaete rubignosa looked like it might have been putting a bit of grown on as well.
But it wasn't just crusts and brackets that I found enjoying the damp. I also found some MUSHROOMS! For the first time in nearly two months.
These were growing on a fallen, decaying oak (?) bough. They had free, pinkish-white gills, dotted with loads of tiny beetley creatures.
... a grey-brown cap...
... and a hint of dark speckling to the stem.
Pretty sure that makes this Deer Shield Pluteus cervinus.
On the same bough, some Small Stagshorn Calocera cornea looked like they'd come out to play in the rain.
For the record
Date: 11 August 2018
Location: Hoe Wood, Small Dole [private site]
Grid reference: TQ2113
Records entered into FRDBI 07/09/2018
A joy to have fungi about again. Tiny beetles on the Dear Shield may be well known to Coleopterists, but I have yet to find out how to identify them. Apparently the smallest beetles are fungi feeders.
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