Fungi in the story circle

Fungi had taken over one of the story circles at Woods Mill on Friday.

Pretty little oyster-shaped things.

I was reminded of Eric Janke's demonstration of the Field Studies Council's Identikit tools, at the British Mycological Society Group Leaders' meeting earlier in the summer. To demonstrate how user-friendly these tools are, Eric knocked up a quick Crepidotus key before breakfast – which I remembered I had sitting in my email inbox.

It only took me ten minutes or so to download the Identikit software and get it running on my computer. And Eric's draft key quickly pointed me in the direction of the Peeling Oysterling Crepidotus mollis.

Screenshot from Eric's draft Crepidotus key, based on information extracted from Funga Nordica.

My collection definitely has the gelatinous, peeling cap cuticle, as you can see here:

The cystidia also look about right...

And the spores are the right size too (7 - 8 microns long, by 5 - 5.5 microns wide).

Here's hoping all the Crepidotus will turn out to be this easy. (She says, hoping she hasn't got this one wrong...)

Cheers, Eric!

For the record
Date: 17/08/2018
Location: Hoe Wood, Woods Mill
Grid reference: TQ217136

Record entered into FRDBI 07/09/2018