Grampian Fungus Group: Aims • To record the fungi of North East Scotland • To encourage an interest in the importance of fungi in everyday life, wherever possible • To develop a greater understanding of fungi through forays, talks and workshops open to members of the Group • To increase the awareness of fungi through contact with local members of both professional and amateur groups which have environmental interests • To promote the conservation of fungi and of threatened habitats of rare fungi Committee Members: Chairperson Bill Burns Beechmount Cushnie Alford Aberdeenshire AB33 8LL Tel: 019755 81209 Group Leader / Foray Organizer / Newsletter Editor Liz Holden Allanaquoich Mar Lodge Estate Braemar Ballater Aberdeenshire AB35 5YJ Tel: 013397 41410 Secretary, Recorder Rosemary Smith Mill of Cranna Aberchirder Huntly Aberdeenshire AB54 7SS Treasurer, Membership Secretary Denis Bain 17 Gleneagles Drive Bridge of Don Aberdeen AB22 8NH Editorial Membership 2010 has turned out to be another Just a reminder that annual subscriptions wonderful fungus year with interesting species are due on January 1 st for 2011. The 2010 turning up and lots of fungal events to keep us AGM agreed to maintain the subscription at busy. We are delighted by the formation of a £5.00 and cheques should be made out to the new local recording group – Clyde and Argyll Grampian Fungus Group and sent to Denis Fungus Group and look forward to further Bain at the address above. working with them in 2011. We are also N.B. If you have recently changed your email or delighted with our new Scottish Fungi website – house address, please let Denis know so that just Google ‘Scottish Fungi’ or click on the link he can update the records. http://sites.google.com/site/scottishfungi/ and check out the latest news or find out what is the Grampian Fungus Group: Members ‘fungus of the month’ – lots of interesting information on here. There were 42 paid up members at Dec 10 th 2010, the following is a list of those who have It has been lovely to have some new faces already paid their 2011 subscription. joining the ‘regulars’ this year. Do come along N.B. if your name is not on the list below and join in the fun. Paradise Wood was the and you wish to remain a member, please foray of the year for me with three wonderful send your cheque before you forget!! records Hohenbuehelia atrocaerulea , Limacella Keith Cohen guttata and Simocybe sumptuosa (see foray Colette Jones reports) – well done Ann, Denis and Rosemary Tako Taal for finding them! From an August survey, Sally Lesley-Melville comes a species from the high tops of the Richard Marriott Cairngorms that might be new to the UK – Sheila Reid opinions differ as to whether this small ochre Joe Sturgeon coloured fungus is Russula pallescens or R. felleaecolor (it’s currently waiting for DNA determination). Later on in the season came Diary Dates the report of the Rayed Earthstar ( Geastrum full list of forays and events will be sent out quadrifidum ) from Blairgowrie. This has been A confirmed and is new to Scotland (see article in the spring. One date for your diary our spring below). foray / AGM taking place on Sunday April 24th , meeting at 10.30am. Location details will The British Mycological Society (BMS) hosted follow in the spring. the International Mycological Congress (IMC9) in Edinburgh in August of this year and two GFG - Foray Reports 2010 excellent exhibitions about fungi ran alongside that event – one in the brand new ‘West Gate’ The full species lists for the forays will follow building at Royal Botanic Gardens and the in the spring; the following comments are just other at Dawyck Cryptogamic Gardens near to give a flavour of each event. Distribution Peebles. I do hope that some of you were able data are taken from the Fungal Records to visit these – it was so exciting to see the Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI), a fungi featured in this way. A small post database that is managed by the BMS. congress foray was held in Braemar and was attended by 20 people from all over the world – Sun. April 25 th Spring Foray and AGM a wonderful experience to be a part of. What The day started with a morning foray around with all of that, the BMS local recording group the lower lochans at Crathes. No toadstools biennial meeting, a boletes workshop, a joint were recorded but lovely material of Inonotus group foray weekend at Comrie and the fungus radiatus and Plicatura crispa was seen in the exhibition at the Trossachs Mushroom Festival wetter areas. A very fine patch of is has been a busy year! Lasiosphaeria spermoides was admired: it looked like a black rash on the wood of a large Just to finish - a plea from me for the next hardwood stump at the beginning of the foray. newsletter– please do send me pieces for this – it is so much better to have contributions from Many thanks to the National Trust for Scotland, a wide range of people. How did you get which hosted the AGM. Full minutes are interested in fungi – what have been your available to members on request, the following experiences? I am sure that they will be of being a brief overview. Ten members attended interest to others. Meanwhile here’s wishing with no apologies. everybody all the best for 2011 - happy fungling! Matters arising related to the GFG Website and Liz Holden to the digital circulation of the Newsletter. Ann Burns has agreed to use available space on the newly established Scottish Fungi website to 2 maintain a GFG website. Click on the link Fri. Sept 3 rd – Sun. Sept http://sites.google.com/site/scottishfungi/local- This was a joint foray weekend with the CAFG groups/grampian-fungus-group . Ann has been and the FGSES based in the Comrie area of busy putting newsletters on line and there is Perthshire. Saturday saw us in the oak woods also a calendar of our events. The digital around Comrie itself. With the help of a local distribution of the GFG newsletter and its new naturalist, the group located a hotspot area for format was well received but even with the use oak associating tooth fungi. Three species of pdf the file size is very large for dial up were found – a Hydnellum and two Phellodon computers to download. The editor will try and The P. niger (agg.) has been sent to Martyn further compress the photos to see if that will Ainsworth at RBGKew for further analysis to make the file size smaller. help unravel the taxonomic issues surrounding these fungi. Other highlights of the Saturday The Treasurer’s report indicated that there included Gyroporus cyanascens (see 2009 were 34 members at the time of the AGM. The Newsletter) and a Russula from base rich oak meeting agreed to maintain the subscription at woodland, which has been provisionally £5.00. identified as Russula rubra (= R. pungens in CBIB). This would be an interesting collection Liz Holden reported that the previous year’s as there are only a scatter of old records from forays had all been successful and that three Scotland and no vouchers from recent years. workshops were arranged for 2010; a Another fascinating Russula collected was R. microscope day, a Comrie foray / workshop virescens . weekend (to be held jointly with the CAFG and FGSES) and a Bolete workshop weekend. Sat. July 10 th With a good turnout, the microscope workshop was held in the meeting room at Mar Lodge which proved to be an excellent venue. The day started with a presentation on tackling the macro and micro features that characterise the main genera of agarics – spore colour, gill attachment, cap cuticle, flesh trama and gill trama. The participants then spent the rest of the time practising the preparations necessary to enable the microscopic features to be seen. Fig. 1: Russula virescens (photo Liz Holden) Feeling confident that you have got the fungus in question to genus is a vital first step to This is a lovely green-capped species that accurate identification. characteristically cracks into a mosaic like pattern. It is not at all frequently recorded in Fri. August 13 th – Sun. August 15 th Scotland but as so often happens, turned up a See below for full report of the Bolete second time at Drummond – one of the Sunday Workshop. sites. Drummond also produced nice material of Marasmius cohaerens and Inocybe Sun. August 22 nd griseolilacina – the latter a lovely lilac tinted By popular request, it was decided to try a fungus with a smell of pelargonium. morning foray followed by an afternoon going through the collections with keys and a Several of us stayed in a delightful chalet on microscope. To enable ease of access to these the shores of a lochan near Comrie, which identification facilities, it was decided to hold made for a splendid barbeque on the Saturday the foray in the Quoich and come back to evening. Roy Watling kindly went around the Allanaquoich Farmhouse for the afternoon. It table of collections every evening, which was made a most enjoyable event. much appreciated by all. This was a most enjoyable weekend in a habitat that the GFG is Sun. August 23 rd rarely able to foray in. Many thanks to Dick Our first visit to Bellwood, Aboyne was a real Peebles of CAFG for making this happen. delight. Bellwood is an open woodland of th mainly pine, spruce and birch plus a few Sat. Sept 11 rowans on almost level ground with very low Leith Hall is a regular for the group and we vegetation, but unfortunately no lying listed about 60 species, mostly seen there deadwood.