A quick scoot round Sullington Warren

Went to Sullington Warren, West Sussex, with some friends the other day. Never been to this site before and with its mixture of heathland, birch and coniferous woodland it made an interesting change from the deciduous woodland sites I usually poke about in locally.

The woodland floor was littered with conifer cones and, after seeing some similar specimens on the BMS Facebook page, I think these must be Conifercone Cap Baeospora myosura. I had a quick look down the microscope, and this collection has very small (3-4 μm) elliptical spores which would be right for this species. I've learnt that the generic name 'Baeospora' means "little spores".

This blue-ing Leccinum was a treat. I've been wanting to see a Leccinum with this character for ages. I normally just see boring old Brown Birch Bolete Leccinum scabrum (or that's what I call them all, anyway).

This collection had a somewhat scabrum-like cap colour, with orangey-brown tones, but that species never goes blue.

This collection took a couple of minutes to change colour in the base, but it was really quite impressive once it did. The brilliant colour reminds me of my Windsor & Newton drawing inks: something between Viridian and Ultramarine.

I got some help from Andy Overall and others over on the BMS Facebook with identifying this one. There are a few different species of Leccinum which can display this kind of colour change, but Orange Birch Bolete L. versipelle is the only one which typically has these orange tones to the cap.

On the heathland, we saw some lovely Laccarias. I think these are most likely Scurfy Deceiver Laccaria proxima; but I haven't checked the spores to make doubly sure it's not just L. laccata.

For the record
Date: 26/10/2019
Location: Sullington Warren, West Sussex
Gridref: TQ0914