Shropshire Group Newsletter 2017

Grifola frondosa – photo by Philip Leather Contents

1. A question for you – Jo Weightman 2. The Old Man of the Woods – Ted Blackwell 3. A new member writes... – Martin Scott 4. Foray at home! – Les Hughes 5. Bury Ditches foray – Jo Weightman 6. Pre-historic tinder fungi – Ted Blackwell 7. Foray at the Hurst – Rob Rowe 8. Another new member writes – Concepta Cassar 9. BMS Study week 2016 – Ray James 10. Foray at the Bog – Jo Weightman 11. Earthstars at Lydbury North – Rob Rowe 12. Foray at Oswestry Racecourse – Susan Leather 13. Some pictures from 2016 14. A foreign fungus – Les Hughes 15. The answer to the question

A question for you from Jo Weightman

What do these four have in common?

Buglossoporus quercinus Laetiporus sulphureus

Polyporus squamosus Polyporus umbellatus

All photos copyright Jo Weightman

Answer at the end!

Who first called it “Old Man of the Woods”?

The toadstool Strobilomyces strobilaceus is obviously one of the Boletus Tribe but differs in several ways. Apart from its striking appearance, the spore print is violaceus-to-black, and although not poisonous it is not considered worth eating. It doesn’t usually decay readily and mummified specimens can sometimes be found still standing in the woods tinged with green algae and encroaching mosses long after the fruiting season.

The late Dr Derek Reid of Kew Mycology considered the Severn Valley to be its UK headquarters and although there are approaching 50 Shropshire records on the national database (FRDBI), however it was not recorded in the county between 2008 and 2016.

The scientific name is from Classical Greek and translates as “fircone fungus” by which it is often referred to in popular reference books, but as if honouring a long-established tradition, ‘Old Man of the Woods’ has been adopted as the official Recommended English Name. The name presumably arising from its lingering woodland presence and shaggy

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unkempt appearance. It’s a name to evoke hoary images of gnarled and crooked hulks of ancient trees and scenes of sylvan rustic folk-lore lost in the mists of time.

But earlier UK fungus reference books don’t mention that name and as far as the UK is concerned there doesn’t appear to be anyhint of historic folk-lore. The name seems to make its first entry into UK literature about the 1970s. Where did it come from, what was its origin? Perhaps an American import that caught-on with UK authors?

A new member writes...

The Calvatia Gigantea (Giant Puffball) is alive and well, and living in Shropshire. The Shropshire Fungus Group has recorded a healthy history of the fungus in the county, from William Phillips Hamilton’s record of a foray in Minsterley in 1897 through to a Church Stretton cemetery sighting in 2007. But since 2007, for the vicecounty of Salop, there have been no further records for C. Gigantea added to the Fungal Records Database of Britain & Ireland.

Giant Puffballs have always excited, and until 2016 also eluded, me, so maybe the same is true of the wider Shropshire community… or maybe they’re just so magical and unreal that we marvel at them, and then, like an imagined glimpse of another world, we forget precisely what we saw as soon as it leaves our line of sight – as if it couldn’t have existed in the first place.

“It looks like a discarded ice cream tub. Or maybe it’s a big milk carton that someone’s thrown out?” I puzzled to my partner, C, as we abled over a Telfordian field, and gazed at a white blob in the distance. We have a game, C and I, we call it ‘Is It A , Or Is It Rubbish?’ More often than not the exciting bright yellow-orange thing in a tree is a Sainsbury’s carrier bag, rather than a giant Laetiporus Sulphureus, the suspected Amanita Muscaria turns out to be a chewn-up ball, and the interesting pale fungi turns out to be a less-than-interesting present left by a passing canine.

“Well if you think it’s something, you might as well go and look – I’m not going to bother,” said C, puppy to hand. And I’m glad that I did. As the distant blob resolved I started to wonder if I’d come across a human skull. Surely not? But then, I have heard say that dog walkers are often the discoverers of unfortunate events from the night (or month) before.

“Oh wow! C! C! You’ve got to come and look!” Nestled amongst a strimmed-back bed of nettles on the border between grazing land and hard woodland, a perfect giant puffball, about the size of a small football, shone in the evening sunlight. A twist and a pull and it was up, and I was doing my best Hamlet: “Alas, poor Yorick; I knew him well.” I was too excited to worry about how hackneyed it was to jump straight into the famous lines.

Eating foraged fungi is not always a wise pursuit. But, fortunately, the keen amateur mycologist knows that there are not many things one could confuse with a foot-wide bone-

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white puffball. Clyde M. Christensen, in his 1943 book ‘Common Edible ’, includes all puffballs in his ‘Foolproof Four’. Descriptions in the book are troublingly scant about the variability of puffballs, and I’m sure that a first-timer might mistakenly gather a large number of earthballs in excitement and delight, only to take them home, halve them, and get an unpleasant surprise, so one would be unlikely to find such a ‘gung-ho’ publication today. However, the giant puffball is a nice easy one, and I felt no guilt plucking the specimen as it sat surrounded by those that had come before it.

1.2 kilograms of (a single) puffball takes a while to consume, but we managed it – griddled like a steak, in pancakes with sage for breakfast, added to a stew – it kept us going for days. The next time we made it out on an amble, 70 miles east of the previous find, but at almost exactly the same latitude, we stumbled across another smaller specimen – we’d gone from three decades never seeing a giant puffball to finding two in almost as many days.

C and I are excited to join the Shropshire Fungus Group this coming year, and to discover all of the wonderful Salopian fungi that we didn’t really get many of, over in Leicestershire, our previous home – for example, it seems we can barely move for Sarcoscypha coccinea or Auricularia auricula-judae around the Ironbridge Gorge. Foray at home!

Are you fed up of tramping through woods and sifting through piles of litter to find your fungi? Well stop right now and adopt a new approach. Foraying at home can produce impressive results, and allow you to find rare and unusual fungi without stirring more than a few yards from your door. Of course it is a little more time consuming. My interest in mycology only stretches back a decade or so, but already I’ve got more than twenty species on my home foray list.

My early interest was edible fungus, and after my first foray, having been told that Honey Fungus is edible (and it was a good year for Honey Fungus), I brought home a huge collection and cooked a good bit of it up. I’m not sure now if displaying it on the garden table was a good idea, because I think it has got its own back, spread its spores around the garden, and is currently besieging my Victoria Plum tree, with an enormous ring of fruit bodies all around. Last year it killed a winter-flowering Viburnum, and this year my pet , raised from a seedling rescued from the wall of a canal dock in South Wales in 1983, failed to put out even a single leaf.

That might be bad news for another of my fungal finds. I share my plum crop with a brown rot, only last year identified as Monilinia fruticola, so if my plum tree dies so does the Monilinia (although it still lives in my other plum tree at the back). That tree regularly plays host to a tidy little collection of Glistening Inkcaps, which appear at its base, but the tree still thrives.

Nearby is the remains of an apple tree, which we had to sacrifice to allow more light into the vegetable garden. That played host first to Chondrostereum purpureum, and only last year to Bjerkandra adusta.

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The first time I saw Tubaria furfuracea, a genus I hadn’t even heard of at that time, was when I found it growing at the bottom of a log pile, waiting to be burnt. And some old decking, now removed, played host for a while to Hypholoma fasiculare. A log I was given as a present, intended to produce a fine crop of Shitake mushrooms, managed a single fruit body, before turning over control to Stereum hirsutum.

In addition to playing host to Honey Fungus my lawn also produces an occasional Marasmius oreades, but not in a ring, and not with any regularity. More frequently it offers a home to Panaeolini foensecii, one of the first fungi I identified using a microscope, by seeing the ornamentation on the spores under oil.

Adjacent to the lawn is a gravel path. I think it is an original path from when the house was built in the 1840s. I moved in in 1987, and in 2010 up popped a single Morel, Morchella vulgaris. Here it is. I ate it. It was the only one before or since, which just goes to show how long a fungus can go without feeling the need to reproduce. More recently I received a small parcel from Ted Blackwell. “Put this in water for a while” he said, “and see what you find under the microscope”. It was a tiny white disco, with a fringe, Lachnella alboviolascens. Six weeks later I was cutting back a climber on the fence which had got out of hand, and what did I find? Lachnella alboviolascens again, fruiting happily on what must be a non-native plant, Akebia quinata.

Now some people have fairies at the bottom of their gardens, but we have a Cypress tree. A couple of years ago I looked under it to see if any fairies had moved in, but found a stout white mushroom instead. When I touched it it blushed a bright scarlet. I identified it using Funga Nordica (FN), as Leucoagaricus croceovelutinus, and took it with, I admit, a certain pride, to show to Geoffrey Kibby, whose course at Preston Montford I was attending. He looked at it and said “This is L. badhamii, I found a lot of it last week”. But I said “No! According to FN that goes green with ammonia, but mine goes brown”. One up to me I thought.

When it re-appeared next year it coincided with a local finding of another species, which also turned scarlet when touched. This one turned green. Closer examination cast confusion on the original identification, and on FN, so I wrote to the editor asking for clarification. He wrote back to say that FN is wrong about the ammonia test. So my home fungus is L. badhamii after all. One up to Geoffrey. By the way I used the first edition of FN. I don’t think this error has been corrected in the second edition.

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I’m allowing myself the leeway of about fifty yards around my garden as home turf, so there are a few more on my list. Volvariella gloeocephala popped up in a pile of shredded wood across the lane in my neighbour’s garden. The picnic area in the dale beneath us regularly displays Conocybe apala, the only place I’ve ever seen it, and also one year produced literally several thousands of fruit bodies of Lachrymaria lachrymabunda, carpeting the whole area. It also provided my first ever sightings of Flammulina velutipes and Coprinus atramentarius.

The woods behind the house, mixed deciduous woodland, but a lot of , regularly produce Hygrophorus eburneus, another fungus with a clear colour change using chemicals, as well as a couple of regulars, Agaricus arvensis and Geastrum triplex. My nicest find there however, right on the edge of what I can call home, was Rhodotus palmatus. I had only seen it once before, on Elm at Dudmaston, and had believed that it was host specific, but here it was growing on Beech.

Oh, and finally, the parson’s lawn, just before the current incumbent’s arrival, produced a fine display of Amanita vaginata. I haven’t told him yet.

So there you are. All home foraying needs is a little patience, and they will come to you. Bury Ditches Foray Sat 1st October 2016

Four members braved the rain and headed uphill towards the fort ducking under the trackside trees for shelter and fungi. Both were scarce but diligence brought some 40+ fungi to light. Among the mycorrhizals were the common Lactarius blennius, L. pyrogalus and Amanita rubescens. Most finds were of litter species, including the rotten cabbage smelling Micromphale brassicolens and an early wood blewitt Lepista nuda. The best of the bunch for rarity if not for beauty was Podostroma alutacea, found by Rob Rowe on a fallen ash branch. Rob tells me it has been called the fag end fungus. This is the first Shropshire collection of a rarely recorded species.

In the afternoon as the weather improved, we crossed the Clun valley to foray at the eastern end of Sowdley Wood, where there is a north-facing beech wood. Here the total was slightly lower but the fungi were in much greater abundance. Indeed the jelly baby Leotia lubrica was coming up in swarms. Mycenas included M. pelianthina (black gill edge) and M. crocata (orange juice). Lactarius fluens was present – this closely resembles L. blennius but has a pronounced pale margin to the cap. A black frilly object on a fallen log proved to be a thin example of Tremella foliacea. There were good examples of Cortinarius nemorensis in all stages – this species seems to be having a good year.

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Pre-historic tinder fungi

In 1991 the deeply frozen remains of a man’s body were found at the melting edge of a glacier high in the Italian Ötzal Alps. Subsequent investigations revealed the corpse to be from the Neolithic period and 5300 years old. Among several things he was carrying were pieces of Bracket Piptoporus betulinus and Tinder or Hoof Fungus fomentarius. The latter was contained in a leather pouch together with plant fragments and, more significantly, pieces of flint and pyrite, indicating it was used for fire-lighting.

Fomes fomentarius is a common bracket , widespread throughout Europe, North America and northern Asia. It has been recorded only relatively recently in Shropshire, twice at Ercall in 2012 & 2015 and three times at Alverley in 2002-3. Archaeology has shown that from the dawn of history it has played a crucial role as one of the few materials easily available to ancient man for use in making fire, and its use as tinder has continued almost into modern times until the invention of matches. Ancient peoples discovered that striking flint on pyrite (aka iron sulphide, iron pyrites, fool’s gold) produced sparks, that if caught on a dry substance obtained from this fungus, would create a glowing ember that could be lightly fanned or blown into flames. The trama or ‘flesh’ of the bracket is used for tinder, having been separated from the hard crust and tube layer. The flesh is cut into strips, soaked in hot water, beaten with a mallet and stretched until soft and pliable, and when thoroughly dried the resulting material is known as ‘Adamou’. Its ignition potential could be enhanced by first soaking in saltpetre (potassium nitrate).

Amadou had other uses such as a styptic to staunch bleeding and in Continental Europe the felted material was made into ornaments, picture-frames and purses, used medicinally. One account reports that the forests of Thuringia, Germany, produced tons of tinder annually, where it was also made into hats, capes, aprons and other articles of dress. The scientific name Fomes is Roman Latin for “kindling wood, touchwood, tinder” and fomentarius is from the same etymological root. Another hoof-shaped bracket, the Bracket, Phellinus ingniarius was also used when similarly processed and known as hard , the specific epithet igniarius meaning ‘pertaining to fire’.

Other fungi known to have been used either as tinder or for transporting fire were King Alfred’s Cakes/Cramp BallsDaldinia concentrica, and Puffballs.

Archaeological excavations in the 1970s at Skara Brae on the western seaboard of the Orkney Isles, a World Heritage Site dating from 3100-2500 BC, discovered material that was thought initially to be fabric but when referred to textile experts was considered more likely to be leather. Leather experts In turn decided otherwise and eventually it was referred to

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Professor Roy Watling at the Edinburgh Botanic Garden. His account says that “all samples were violaceous-to-fuscous black and were shiny on the outer surface and indeed similar superficially to leather. However the fluffy inner surface of a puffball was seen” and mature spores of Bovista nigrescens (Brown Puffball)were identified. One may speculate why Neolithic man should have collected Brown Puffballs but it is known that like Adamou, they may be used as tinder or as a haemostatic to staunch light bleeding.

The smoke from a smouldering Giant Puffball Calvatia gigantea was traditionally used to calm bees before opening a hive to extract honey. The British Herbalist John Gerard (1546-1612) in the 1597 edtion of his Herbal says “fusse bals [puffballs] with which in some places in England they used to kill or smoulder their Bees when they would drive the Hives, and bereave the poore Bees of their meate, houses, and hives". It is believed that Giant puffballs were used to carry smouldering embers to transport fire from place to place, and there was a report in recent times of someone using a smouldering puffball to light fireworks on Bonfire Night. Again Gerard is informative, saying that apart from eating Giant Puffballs “in divers parts of England, where people dwell farre from neighbours, they carry dry Fusse Balls [puffballs] kindled with fire, which lasteth long”.It seems highly likely that ancient man would have been well acquainted with using this fungus for this purpose.

The Hurst fungi

The Hurst, just to the east of Clun, was formerly home to playwright John Osborne, and is now part of the Arvon Foundation which provides courses for writers. The house sits within 26 acres of woodland, some of which is part of a an area of semi-natural coppice woodland that stretched for 5 miles along the Clun valley. Now although mostly replanted there are still some good area of broadleaves.

The area above the Hurst called Sowdley wood is largely oak standards with a good smattering of beech and some very large conifers, particularly Scots pine and Douglas fir.The north facing slopes with deep leaf mould seem to hold the moisture this autumn when everywhere else was bone dry giving rise to a fine crop of fungi for the second year running.

I have walked though these woods for nearly 40 years. I used to live at one end, my parents at the other and although aware of the flowering plants present, fungi more or less passed me by.Now, with others help, my eyes are being opened to them.

As a relative beginner I realise that I learn mainly by being shown [again and again!] till it finally sticks and I will always be eternally grateful to my teachers.As in so many areas it seems that as you start to learn a little, the vastness of the subject becomes apparent.

On the 30th October 2016 Shropshire Fungi Group met outside the Hurst house and spent the day in the woods above.Of the many fungi found here[98 on SFG outing this year] these

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two are perhaps the most important from this special site.Phellodon confluensthe first in Shropshire since the 1870s from the 2015 foray but not found this year.

Hydnellum spongiosipes first record in Shropshire spotted last year but confirmed this year by Kew. These are both Red data book species. Two particular boletes were also very striking and unusual.

Old man of the woods Strobilomyces strobilaceus and Dusky bolete Porphyrellus porphyrosporus Jewelled Amanita, Amanita gemmata is another rarity that was found here this year

Another new member writes...

Food for thought: Newe-Fangled Meates

“Therefore I give my simple advice unto those that love such strange and newe-fangled meates, to beware licking honey among thornes, least the sweetness of the one do not countervaile the sharpnes and prickling of the other.”

– John Gerard, The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes, 1597

There are few people out there who will share my enthusiasm for the gathering grey skies that have come to define the last couple of weeks. As balmy summer days picking canalside raspberries give way to the familiar damp of insolent British drizzle, my mounting excitement has been difficult to hem in. Pulling on my wellington boots, I know that the arrival of rain after a warm summer can only mean one thing: mushrooms.

I am what Lorna Bunyard once referred to as “a confirmed toadstool eater”[1], always keeping half an eye out for these mysterious fruits of the earth. It is no wonder that Mrs Bunyard’s chapter on mushrooms should follow a chapter entitled Strange Meats, however, as this is, historically, how they have been perceived by the British. John Gerard, perhaps our most revered botanist, was certainly not a fan, affirming that they “do hunger after the earthie excrescences”[2] – an association he makes more than once – whilst noting their habit of popping up on the “rotting bodies of trees” in “dankish”, “shadowie”[3] places. Gerard dismisses fungi as “unproffitable” and “nothing worth”[4], repeatedly warning the reader that they are “full of poison” and “deadly”[5].

Of course now we know that this isn’t actually the case. Of the 3,000 or so species of fungi that can be found in the British Isles [6], only around twenty are gravely poisonous (though many more are too tough or bitter to make for desirable eating) [7]. Though these poisonous species sometimes resemble and mimic the habits of edible ones – making careful examination an important rite of any foray – this does not quite explain why the British are so sceptical about fungi. It was not until the war years that the British public “came to realize that not only the mushroom, but other fungi also … were edible, nutritious and palatable”[8], and certainly not until this century that we started in earnest to explore varieties other than Agaricus bisporus for their culinary possibilities.

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British cultural aversion to these new-fangled meates [9] is evinced by Gerard’s description of the treatment of puffballs. Where in other countries they were renowned for their culinary value, in sixteenth century Britain, “the people where they grow *were+ constrained to dig them up and cast them abroad like Molehills”[10], or “set *them+ on fire” to “kill and smother Bees” [11]. This strange violence towards fungi is something that I see regularly on my walks, where some poor, unsuspecting fungus pops its head up, only to be raked over or kicked to pieces by a passing tyrant. More often than not, these species are edible, and leave me feeling as though I’ve been deprived of a free, succulent morsel.

By comparison, many early creation stories, from South Africa to the Philippines [12][13], feature mushrooms as a metaphor for the beginning of the world. Other world cultures have long enjoyed the bounty that the fungi have to offer, with mushroom foraging forming an integral part of economic and social activity in many societies. In mainland Europe their importance can be seen throughout history, from Lorenzo de’ Medici’s verses dedicated to cheerful women gathering mushrooms in verdant meadows [14], to the earliest attempts by the French to cultivate them in 1707 [15].

Even our most cherished, forward-thinking writers are subject to this prejudice – with Shakespeare’s Prospero deriding the “green sour ringlets” of “midnight mushrumps” that the fairies make, alluding to the erroneous folklore that livestock will not graze where poisonous mushrooms lie [16]. Only thirty years later in France, Molière named perhaps his most famous protagonist after the delectable, subterranean truffle, or Tartuffe. For all his pastoral sensitivity, even Keats fails to see virtue in the mycological kingdom, describing its denizens as “night-swollen” [17] and “cold” [18] two centuries later.

Fortunately, by the time Victoria had ascended the throne, someone had come to defend the virtues of these hidden riches in the form of Rev. Dr. Charles David Badham. Badham learned of the value of edible fungi whilst practising medicine in France and Italy, and, having noted the nutritive, culinary and economic benefits that they could offer – particularly to the most disenfranchised in society [19] – published A Treatise on the Esculent of England in 1847. The volume is informative and witty, and even if some of the information contained in it has been improved upon since, will still prove an interesting read to the amateur mycologist. In the volume, Badham notes how strange it is that we are so fearful of fungi when we regularly eat of a genus renowned for its poison, Solanaceae [20].

Badham definitively won my affection when bemoaning the fierce neglect of one of my favourite mushrooms, the cep, once affectionately known in this country as the Penny Bun: “the sweet, nutty-flavoured Boletus, in vain calling himself edulis where there was none to believe him” [21]. When I was little, there were few things I would look forward to more than when my uncle would turn up with jars of gold: porcini mushrooms preserved in rosemary-infused olive oil. Even today, there are few foods that are able to match the delight that they bring about in me.

Luckily, the fate of fungi is slowly changing in the UK. The determined efforts of a few intrepid people, from Victorians and twentieth century Bohemians, to the UK’s rich and diverse immigrant populations of which I am a part, finally seem to be paying off. Only this year did Dr Paul Thomas harvest the first cultivated truffle in Leicestershire [22]. Hopefully our interest in these delicacies will encourage us to afford greater protections to the

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hedgerows and woodland in which they thrive, and will inspire us all to go in search of the more common place treats growing closer to home.

Taken from Litro Stories Transport You - with permission

[1] Bunyard, Edward A, and Lorna Bunyard, The Epicure’s Companion (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1937), p.120. [2] Gerard, John et al, The Herball, Or, Generall Historie Of Plantes (London: John Norton, 1597), p.1384. [3] Ibid., 1386. [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid., p.1385. [6] Phillips, Roger, and Lyndsay Shearer, Mushrooms And Other Fungi Of Great Britain And Europe (London: Pan Books, 1981), p.6. [7] Mabey, Richard, Food For Free (London: Collins, 2007), p.182. [8] Ibid. [9] Gerard, John et al., The Herball, Or, Generall Historie Of Plantes (London: John Norton, 1597). [10] Ibid. [11] Ibid., p.1387. [12] Kirby, Jimmy. ‘Creation Stories: Uniting Humanity To Educe A Holistic Understanding Of The African Worldview’, 31 St Annual National Council For Black Studies Conference (New York: Cornell University, 2007. 9). Aug 16 2015. [13] Demetrio, Francisco, Creation Myths Among The Early Filipinos, Asian Folklore Series (Tokyo), XXVII, 1968, p.56. [14] Lorenzo de’ Medici, Selve, in Opere, edited by Tiziano Zanato (Torino: Einaudi, 1992), p.457. [15] Tournefort, Joseph, Observations sur la naissance et sur la culture des champignons. Memoires de mathematique et de physique de l’Academie royale des sciences (Academie royale des sciences, 1707). [16] Shakespeare, William, and Cedric Thomas Watts, The Tempest (Ware: Wordsworth Editions Limited), 2004. 5.1: 3639. [17] Keats, John and John Barnard, Selected Poems: Keats (London: Penguin Classics, 2007), p.42. [18] Ibid., p.91. [19] Badham, David, A Treatise On The Esculent Funguses Of England (London: Lovell Reeve), 1863, p.viii. [20] Ibid., p.39. [21] Ibid., p.150. [22] ‘First UK-farmed truffle harvested’, BBC News, Aug 18 2015.

BMS Study week – 31/10/16-07/11/16 New Forest

I was pleasantly surpried by the number and variety of fungi encountered during a week which I thought was late in the mycological calendar. Obviously the fungi didn’t think so!! Over forty persons attended, and we were based in a nearby holiday camp that provided a large hall which served as a lab where we could work. The facilities were fine, especially the BMS hot water urn... which meant you could have a hot drink of tea or coffee any time of the day... a very civilised way of conducting a study week.

Typically, the gathering included a wide range of people. Some obviously very experienced, some, like myself, mere novices, whilst others were between these two extremes. It was very relaxed and interesting, putting faces to names only previously only known as authors to books and journal articles, with sometimes a vague recognition of a face from a dim and distant past.

Currently I am generally hopeless at identifying things in the field, so my strategy is to collect about 5-8 specimens and examine them and take spore prints etc back in the lab. I am aware that I may miss some field characters this way, but if I got stuck there were plenty of people around to help.

Some people from Yorkshire were very excited to find, in abundance, Marasmius hudsonii, with its cap covered in spiky hairs, and there was a tremendous array of Mycena, so it was helpful to have Thomas Lassoe in attendance, as his book on Mycena has recently been published. I myself was delighted to come across the ‘porcelain fungus’ (Oudemansiella

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mucida) with its characteristic all-white appearance, and thick gills, growing on a dying beech tree along with at least four other fungi.

Unfortunately, on the Thursday, the lightbulb ‘blew’ in my 45 year old microscope, and what spares I had didn’t fit so that effectively ended my microscope work for the week. But other people were very helpful, allowing me to pick their brains regarding the purchase of a new microscope, and there was a variety of them present for me to see.

On my last day out I came across what appeared to be a swollen, coloured club among the grass which was most likely to have been Cordyceps militaris, but I was unable to verify.

All in all a most satisfying week.

Foray at The Bog

It was definitely the coldest day of the year so far. The wind and mist struck to the bone such that we forayers needed some rewards. We found them sheltering like ourselves down among the . Some common mycorrhizals in several genera were present – Amanita submembranacea (det. John Bingham) was the most interesting of the Amanitas and among the Cortinarii there was a fresh group of the greenish brownish yellow Cortinarius croceus. Litter species included the tiny club Typhula erythropus and the tall slender gravity- defying Macrotyphula fistulosa. Hand lenses were needed to examine the fluffy pink body of Illosporiopsis christiansenii which grows on lichens on trees. Back on the thin soils near the car park was a large colony of the pale straw to pale ochre Clavaria argillacea which occurs with heather and may be mycorrhizal with it. The Bog Visitor Centre was most restorative.

As it was brighter and less windy in the afternoon, some of the forayers settled for an informal visit to Pennerley Meadow SSSI. It was either too early or too late or the wrong year to see the meadow at its best but there were, nonetheless, some interesting finds. Most notable were Entoloma porphyrophaeum, (a useful indicator) of unimproved grassland and several waxcaps including the sombre grey Neohygrocybe (Hygrocybe) ovina which stains red on handling or scratching. Growing on bare ground was a thin fan-shaped agaric, with whitish cap and dingy gills – this was Arrhenia acerosa. The high spot was a large colony of the dark turquoise-green club Microglossum olivacea.

Earthstars at Lydney North

This time last year had me puzzling over a small earthstar [Geastrum] from the graveyard in Bishops Castle growing under a yew tree.

Eventually after reading a short bit in the SFG newsletter, consulting good old Google and specifically with Jo Weightmans help and confirmation I realised it was G.brittanicum, which is a species which has only fairly recently been described.

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This set me of looking around other local graveyards. These small earthstars dry out and persist for months if not years and are fairly easy to spot and so I have spent a good deal of time scrabbling around under yew trees particularly in graveyards.

Next were a couple of finds of G.striatum just over the border in Powys.

A couple of weeks later I called in at Lydbury North churchyard and was bowled over to find a veritable tide line of many dozens of earthstars forming a carpet under a yew tree which was probably planted in Victorian times.

Although seeming the same or very similar I eventually realised, again with Jo's help that there were four species present here, under three yew trees, within a few square yards,G.brittanicum, G.fornicatum, G.fimbriatum and G.striatum. It seems very unlikely to find so many of these unusual species together in such a small area and makes you wonder why that is such a good habitat. These have all been found under yews in graveyards apart from one in Powys under a cypress. Nearly all of the yews have been relatively young trees [the Victorians had a great thing for yew] rather than really ancient trees.

I wonder whether the continual dumping of rubbish under yew trees which is so prevalent in many churchyards has had a detrimental effect? Since then despite having visited many churchyards I have only found G. brittanicum at Halford churchyard near Craven Arms and G.fornicatum at Stokesay. Foray at Oswestry Racecourse

For the first foray of the 2016 season, eight of us gathered at Oswestry racecourse. We welcomed Liam, a new member, who turned out to be very keen and attended pretty much every foray of the autumn.

For those not familiar with the site, ‘racecourse’ gives a misleading impression of what to expect. It’s an open hilltop area of grassland, scattered trees, bracken scrub and woods on the slopes. The racecourse dates from the eighteenth-century and the last race was held in 1848. There are some very rudimentary ruins of a grandstand that looked more like a barn (from the information board nearby). Otherwise, there’s a large swathe of grass forming a loop edged with trees.

Piptoporus betulinus The weather forecast was not good, but in the event it was a largely sunny, blustery day with good views. We were in some doubt that we would find much by way of fungi as the weather had been so dry. Philip and Susan, who were leading the foray, did a recce a couple of days previously and found very little. However, with some rain having fallen between the recce and the foray and more pairs of eyes on the case – and more observant ones at that – we ending up finding a reasonable tally of species.

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We headed south from the car park towards Racecourse wood on the slopes below the circuit, as this was expected to be more productive. However, we started to find fungi among the clumps of trees lining the grass sward while still on the hilltop. Some elderly Daedaleopsisconfragosa on rowan was the first such find, but a good little range of other items followed. This cheered everyone. We were including rusts, oak mildew, bracken map and tar spot as well just to be sure of getting a decent list… The areas of grassland were not very productive, though we did find Amanita crocea Bolbitiustitubans.

Eventually we reached some woodlands, with mixed areas of deciduous and conifers. Here we started to get a greater range of finds, including under conifers a lot of rather odd-looking Gymnopusperonatus that had everyone foxed for a while. Philip and Susan swore it hadn’t been there Amanita citrina on Thursday – they surely couldn’t have missed all those? Already by Saturday it was looking past its best. A further illustration of the speed with which fungi can develop was a specimen of Amanita crocea. On Thursday this had just emerged from the volva and the cap was still Calocera pallidospathulata very conical and closed up. By Saturday it was fully open and had fallen over.

As we worked our way down the hillside through the woods, Charlotte and Clive, who have gimlet eyes for tiny specimens, found some Leotialubrica and Hymenoscyphusfructigenus, the latter on beechmast. A considerable debate was held over a large clump of what turned out to be Kuehneromycesmutabilis rather than Galerinamarginata. We comparedand contrasted the macro- characteristics of the two species and opinions were divided, but in the end it came down to Les settling the matter through microscope work.

The path went steeply downhill and we stopped for a standing-up lunch when it became apparent that we weren’t finding anything new. Then we had to toil back up again, exploring side paths as we did so. We were rewarded with Calocerapallido-spathulata among other finds as we worked our way back up the hill. In all, a good range of typical finds amounting to over 50 species and a satisfactory start to the programme.

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A Random collection of SFG photos from 2016

Secret – not all found in Shropshire!

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Foreign fungus

On a recent trip abroad (mid-Wales) we came across a series of cowpats, all covered with bright orange dots. A closer examination revealed them to be disc fungi, tiny orange buttons, each with a frings of hairs like eyelashes. This quickly led to the genus Cheilymenia in Ellis & Ellis, where the determining factor for species is the presence of short, three to five armed, stellate hairs at the base of the excipulum. Which can be seen here, clearly, in the middle of the photo. Cheilymenia stercorea.

Those four fungi – the answer

Have a bracket shape? – three only Have a parasitic way of life? – two only Are large – yes, all are large, but one only in a communal way Are associated with broadleaf trees - yes but one diversifies Have pores – yes

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Best answer

Time of fruiting – YES, they are all are summer fruiters

Of the four two are very common and well known while the other two are very uncommon and unfamiliar to many. ALL, however, are at their best in July and August.

Polyporus squamosus Dryads Saddle is distinctive at all stages. In spring, when first stirring, it can look disturbingly anthropological but the pale gut-like appearance passes as the clusters and tiers of huge scaly brackets develop. The pores are quite large and angular. It is a parasite on trees, perhaps preferring ash, and subsequently behaves saprophytically, continuing to live off its dead victim. Not likely to be confused with anything else.

Laetiporus sulphureus Chicken of the Woods also occurs on a wide range of living or dead broadleaf trees but also on yew. This, the second common fungus of the four, is also highly distinctive but only in the full glory of its maturity when the bright orange-gold of the tiered brackets illuminates the darkest day in the woods. However, when the host is oak, which it commonly is, and when the first bumps are emerging, it can be confused with that very uncommon fungus the Oak Polypore Buglossoporus quercinus, a species now on its third recent name. So beware of yellowish bumps on oak in the spring and wait to see what develops. The Laetiporus eventually forms relatively thin brackets often in massive tiers. The pores are tiny. Fruiting can extend into September. The brackets soon turn white and fall, crumbling like chalk when handled.

Buglossoporus quercinus the Oak Polypore was recently known as Piptoporus quercinus and is now reinstated under the earlier name. Known only from oak and like the oak itself, it is very tenacious to life. I have seen it on the trunk of living trees but also on branches so long fallen that they are decorticated and degraded by years of erosive wear and tear. The appears to persist until the right conditions of moisture? heat? and opportunity combine – the opportunity being a crack forming in the hard wood allowing access to the outside world for the fruitbody. In shape it is not unlike that of the birch polypore, similar in size and thickness, sometimes arising in conjoined twos and threes but most often in singles. The pileus when fresh is golden-brown, staining a darker brown when touched and with age, The pores are very small and whitish to cream – if touched when very young I have seen it stain violet. This species is protected by law and may not be damaged or removed. Not yet recorded in Shropshire but likely to be present. Remember to look for it on summer walks.

Polyporus umbellatus. This is a terrestrial species thought to arise from buried roots. It forms football-sized mounds composed of many caps, all more or less centrally attached to a multiply dividing stock. The pores can easily be seen with the naked eye and are decurrent down the stalks. The fruitbody develops on a black, knobbly sclerotium, just under or just breaking the surface of the soil – a structure which can be several metres across. Not yet recorded in Shropshire but recorded for the first time in Herefordshire in 2016.

Now, you all knew that already didn’t you?(ed) All photos copyright SFG members 2017

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