Pat Cavanagh

We had an interesting and productive first meeting of our autumn programme at Bricket Wood at the end of August.  Finds included 3 Cortinarius (webcaps) including Marsh webcap, Cortinarius uliginosus (pictured) a site speciality, with only one other known site in Herts.

The new meeting point is as follows:

St Stephen Parish Centre, Station Road, Bricket Wood, St Albans AL2 3PJ, grid ref. TL136021.

The calendar entry has been updated accordingly

Our autumn programme is now in the calendar (bottom right of home page if viewing on a pc, scroll to the bottom if using a phone or tablet).  To view information on a meeting, click on the relevant date in the calendar.  Click Read more to see all details including an aerial photo of the meeting point.

Pat

We had an interesting and informative workshop on rusts and smuts on 7 May, with a brief description of their complicated lifecycles and an opportunity to look at a variety of specimens, including the smut on Cuckoo Pint / Lords & Ladies – Melanustilospora ari.  This has been considered rare but with several recent finds, it may just have been overlooked.  It causes black blotches on the leaves – but there are often black blotches on the leaves of this plant – but more tellingly it creates pustules on the undersurface of the leaf, see photo.  So worth looking out for.

Six people including the leader, Kerry Robinson, were at this meeting, and they were accompanied by the assistant warden, John Rowley. It had been very dry beforehand, so the group concentrated on the damper areas near the ponds, where they found the rare asco-on-a-stalk  Myriosclerotinia sulcatula (photo attached).

Other notable finds were the dainty little white toadstool Hemimycena tortuosa (Dewdrop bonnet, so-called as it often has water droplets on its cap and stipe), the striking red cup fungus Sarcoscypha austriaca  (Scarlet elfcup), and the somewhat less striking rust on hartstongue fern, Milesina scolopendrii, which is interesting in that it does not look like the common rusts, but instead appears as inconspicuous white fluff on the back of old /overwintering leaves of the fern (http://www.nifg.org.uk/species/photos/photo115.htm)

We had a good haul of Pluteus species – Pluteus umbrosus (Velvet shield – photo from Alison), Pluteus luteovirens (Yellow shield – see next item), Pluteus cervinus (Deer shield) and Pluteus minutissimus aka P. podospileus (no common name yet)

…and a second photo from Alison – Pluteus luteovirens

Pseudoboletus parasiticus (Parasitic bolete) with Scleroderma citrinum (Common earthball); photo by Sharon.