Another rust

Walking through Hoe Wood, I noticed the Lords-And-Ladies Arum maculatum were dotted with pale orange spots.

Looking under the leaves, I spotted tell-tale signs of another rust fungus from the genus Puccinia. Forming circular pustules at first, then bursting out into a ring of cup-shaped aecia.

Ellis & Ellis (1997) lists only one Puccinia species on Arum: Puccinia sessilis.

For the record
Date: 11/04/2019
Location: Hoe Wood [private site]

Rusty nettle

These nettles caught my eye on a lunchtime walk on Monday. They were covered in little red galls, with the bright orange fruit bodies ('aecia') of a rust fungus busting out of them.

Here's one of those little red galls.

The aecia are proper stunning under the microscope.

It looks like Nettle Clustercup Rust Puccinia urticata (based on reference to images on Plant Parasites of Europe) but I'm not sure if there are other similar-looking species which occur on Stinging Nettle Urtica dioica.

For the record
Date: 08/04/2019
Location: Woods Mill
Grid reference: TQ218135

Anemone Cups

Spot the fungus! Was the name of the game at Park Corner Heath today, as I scanned the swathes of wood anemones covering the woodland floor, searching for signs of Anemone Cup Dumontinia tuberosa.

I eventually came across a nice little group, in the foreground in the image above. Here they are up close:

The cups I examined all had long, 'rooting', stalks.

Over on the British Mycological Society Facebook page, Lucas Large agreed they look good for Anemone Cup D. tuberosa and shared this gorgeous colour plate from 'Icones mycologicæ' by Émile Boudier, published online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Sclerotinia (= Dumontinia) tuberosa. Illustration from 'Icones mycologicæ' via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

I regret now that I didn't dig a bit deeper to find the sclerotia from which this species grows.

I haven't been able to find a huge amount of information about this species on the interweb. Alick Henrici wrote about it in his 'Notes & Records' in 2012 (Field Mycology, volume 13, issue 1) and commented that, "It can't really be rare", although it is fairly seldom recorded.

UPDATE 10/04/2019

Thought I'd do a bit more work on this collection, see what the microscopic features look like.

Still looks pretty good for D. tuberosa...?


For the record
Date: 6 April 2019
Location: Park Corner Heath, East Hoathley, East Sussex
Grid reference: TQ5105414835