Spring zing

Had a free morning and the sun was out, so seemed like a good opportunity for a poke around my local patch.

The Spring Hazelcup Encoelia furfuracea are out again. I find them around here every year.

Some patches looked like they'd been out for a while.

In the woods there is a windblown Ash which is home to a Ganoderma and King Alfred's Cakes Daldinia concentrica. Growing in the cracks of the bark, on the horizontal trunk, I came across a Peziza-type thing.

The outer surface is rough, with dark scales around the opening.

Expect I'll need to put some work into getting an ID on this one.

This rotting (birch?) log was home to some very intriguing fungi.

The bright tan caps of these little mushrooms were shrouded in a thick white veil, with a covering of gingery-brown scales, especially towards the top.

When I pulled one out for a closer look, I noticed patches of fine ginger threads growing over the substrate...

... Ah hah! I thought, I have seen this before: it looks like the gingery mat – or 'ozonium' – of Firerug Inkcap Coprinellus domesticus.

Except mycology is rarely so simple. The Collins Fungi Guide (Buckzacki) explains there are three other species which can be confused with Firerug Inkcap Coprinellus domesticus and also arise from an ozonium: C. ellisii (considered by some authors to be synonymous with C. domesticus), C. xanthothrix and C. radians.

Turning to Funga Nordica (Knudsen & Vesterholt), C. ellisii is included within the species concept they follow for C. domesticus. And it looks like C. domesticus, C. xanthothrix and C. radians can be separated on spore shape and size. I shall have to see if I can get some mature spores from my collection...

UPDATE 18/03/2019 - my collection has matured a bit and I have managed to obtain a spore print. 

Here are the spores, mounted in water at 400x magnification.

Spores from spore print. Mounted in water. 400x magnification.

My measurements make them 6.4-7.5 x 3.6-4.4 microns {based on 10 spores}. Funga Nordica gives a spore size for C. domesticus of 6-9 x 3.5-5 microns, so my collection is within that range (the other two species, C. radians and C. xanthothrix, have larger spores). It looks like the spore shape is about right too.

Illustration of C. domesticus spores, from Funga Nordica.

Close up of my micrograph, showing "ellipsoid to phaseoliform" spore shape and large central germ pore.

Let's call this one C. domesticus.

Near there, I came across a rotting stump covered in what-I-think-are Glistening Inkcap Coprinellus micaceus, pictured at the top of this blog. (Although I've since read that this is another species which can be confused; I didn't take a specimen, so can't check the finer details.)

In one of the more remote corners of the wood, my head was turned by a rather lush looking plant.

 
Stinking Hellebore Helleborus foetidus. The Flora of Sussex describes this as "native in chalky woodland and scrub" and "always rare as a native in Sussex". I would think it's likely my find is a native plant as it was in a chalky woodland, well away from any houses.

I love the touch of purple.

I didn't see too much else of note.

By the gate there is a dead Elder tree. I liked how the Jelly Ear Auricularia auricula-judae is growing from the spiralling cracks in the grain.

And in an old stand of Hazel I spotted this round silver-y mass: the hardened fruit body ('aethalium') of False Puffball Reticularia lycoperdon, a slime mould. Just doing its thing. 

For the record
Date: 17/03/2019
Location: Horton Wood
Grid reference: TQ208127 (site centroid)