1 Grampian Fungi Group: Aims • To record the fungi of North East of 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 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 Toni Watt [email protected] Secretary Ann Burns [email protected] Membership Secretary and Treasurer Denis Bain [email protected] Denis Bain 17 Gleneagles Drive, Bridge of Don, Aberdeen, AB22 8NH Diary dates Co-ordinator Toni Watt [email protected] Newsletter Editor Richard Marriott [email protected] Other Committee members: Mary Bain [email protected] Glenn Roberts [email protected] Helen Baker Nicola Alcorn Carol Blow Bob Daly Membership The annual subscription is currently £10-00. Cheques should be made out to “Grampian Fungus Group” and sent to the Membership Secretary and Treasurer Denis Bain (see above). www.facebook.com/grampianfungusgroup Front cover: The Date Waxcap Hygrocybe spadicea photo Helen Baker 2 Editorial Welcome to the account of our foraying in 2018. It proved to be a very good year indeed for the group. We got off to an amazing start with Nicola’s Earthstar discovery (see page 3). All the forays were well attended and the innovations such as the late winter foray in December proved very worthwhile. Despite the very dry summer, the forays in July and August found enough species to have made them enjoyable too. In the autumn, woodland agarics were much in evidence including good displays of large Fly agarics Amanita muscari. In contrast the grassland fungi were few and far between. However, this was not true for the fortunate three from the group who went down to the Waxcap workshop in Northumberland. Their account makes one green with envy! It would have been worth travelling all that way just to see the colour of the Citrine waxcap Hygrocybe citrinovirens (see page 14). Another innovation was the calendar produced by Mary. It was very much a last-minute idea with deadlines to get a good on-line deal, so not everyone got a chance to order one – maybe next time? The Spring Foray will be on Saturday 13th April at Drum. Meet at 10.30am in the car park. The AGM will be in the afternoon. Hope to see you then. Richard Ballerina waxcap Hygrocybe calyptriformis Nicola Alcorn 3 A year on the Deeside railway path Nicola Alcorn The Deeside railway was opened in 1853 and ran from Aberdeen to Ballater but was decommissioned in the 1960s and is now a local walkway. I moved to Grampian 18 months ago and have made a weekly foray here. In many places there is only a foot of vegetation on either side of the path under a mixture of Ash,Sycamore,Beech and Poplar.. Although not very promising for the field mycologist, but being so close at hand, I have kept going as it was convenient and I enjoyed the walk. Surprisingly I have had three good finds in the last year from this uninspiring location. The Barometer earthstar Astraeus hygrometricus is the only recent collection known in Scotland and has been sent down to Kew for confirmation. It differs microscopically from other earthstars (Geastrum species) with its amazing rays that curl up in dry weather. This just goes to prove that persistence at a site can pay off. Hair ice is a type of ice associated with the fungus Exidiopis effusa which is found to be key to its formation. It appears in frosty weather on dead broadleaf wood. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_ice for more information. Barometer Earth Star Astraeus hygrometricus.1/4/18 Exidiopsis effusa “Hair Ice” 7/1/18 Birds Nest fungus Cyathus striatus 6/8/17 Photos Nicola Alcorn 4 A letter from Canna Jan 28th 2019 A wild and windy day today, perfect for thinking back over the mycological exploits of the last 12 months to share with you! Starting on Canna and picking up on a theme from last year’s letter – finding things on brambles – in April they produced an exciting species new to me – Aleurodiscus aurantius. This is a resupinate and was growing on the underside of a dead bramble stem. A slight orangey tinge made me look twice and sure enough a spore print revealed large, finely spiny and amyloid spores. This brings my total recorded, of this small genus, to three. Aleurodiscus aurantius Pluteus thomsonii An early foray to the Birks of Aberfeldy with a visiting mycology group produced another species new to me – Gyroporus castaneus growing with oak. This is at first glance a rather unexciting bolete with none of the dramatic colour changes of its cousin G. cyanescens. It does however, share the feature of a stem composed of hollow chambers – very distinct. This got the 2018 autumn season off to a very good start and was quickly followed with a collection of Pluteus thomsonii from the marram grass at Balmedie dunes. Whilst not uncommon further south there are only two other Scottish records. Later in the year in August, Canna delighted me with material of Hygrocybe spadicea a UK Priority species and also on the BMS 'Lost and Found' project list (fungi.myspecies.info/content/lost-found-fungi-project). I had been looking for it as Canna seemed a perfect location with its south facing, basalt rock and unimproved grasslands. 2018 seems to have been a good year for this species – we found it again on the Hadrian’s Wall (also basalt) waxcap workshop and again, more unexpectedly, on Speyside (not basalt!). It seems likely that the warm weather last summer suited this species of thin, well drained, soils. Waxcaps have previously all been included in the genus Hygrocybe but recently, DNA studies have split this into Cuphophyllus, Cromosera, Gliophorus, Glioxanthomyces, Hygrocybe, Neohygrocybe and Porpolomopsis. The basidomycete checklist of Britain and Ireland has accepted these new genera. For pragmatic reasons the conservation community are continuing to use Hygrocybe (in the broad sense) for assessing waxcap grasslands, for instance JNCC have recently revised their guidelines for SSSIs including non-lichenised fungi http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/pdf/SSSI_Chapter14fungi_2018a.pdf . It is likely that future identification books will begin to introduce the new names so it will be useful to familiarise yourself with them. Liz Holden 5 GFG Foray Reports 2018 GFG Spring Foray and AGM Saturday 28th April Castle Fraser Toni Watt Nine members were present for the first foray of the year. We never expect to see many species on this first foray, but we did see one Agaric, and also an Ascomycete which we now almost expect on the Spring foray – A False Morel Gyromitra esculenta. Most of the fungi we saw we learned to call Resupinate fungi as Nicola had been on a course looking at such species. The most unusual find of the morning was a black crust on a very dead stump. Further investigation and some good detective work by Helen found this to be Ruzenia spermoides, quite distinctive under the microscope but probably under recorded as it did just look like a black crust! False Morel Gyromitra esculenta photo Nicola Bill Burns and cake photo Toni We adjourned for lunch to the log cabin. This was followed by the AGM, then Toni showed slides of the fungal highlights of 2017, Nicola showed photos of her star find, the Barometer Earthstar, Astraeus hygrometricus (see above )and Richard showed slides identifying an LBJ to Psathyrella sp using macro and microscopic characters. We finished with a cake to celebrate Bill’s 80th birthday - a good end to the first foray of the year! Sunday 29th July GFG Bellwood, Aboyne Toni Watt After weeks of drought in the northeast, the weather finally broke and it was a wet start to the foray season. Ironically, because it had been so dry until today there weren’t a huge number of fungi but there were enough to get our out-of-practice brains working again. We found a lovely Orange Birch Bolete Leccinum versipelle, Chanterelles Chantarellus cibarius - often an early find - and a Deadly webcap, Cortinarius rubellus - beautiful colours but very poisonous! There were Russula sp to practise on and test with crystals. Thanks to Helen for our Russula vesca (aka The Flirt) masterclass, hopefully we will recognise at least that one again; and finally a lovely patch of Creeping Lady’s Tresses orchid with their delicate white flowers, a beautiful diversion from the fungi! 6 Orange Birch Bolete Leccinum versipelle Creeping Lady’s Tresses orchid Photos Toni Watt Saturday 18th August GFG Burn O’Vat Richard Marriott The weather was warm and sunny for our second foray, so there were Scotch Argus and Speckled wood butterflies, Grasshoppers and a basking lizard. Fortunately there had been some good rain after the record hot dry summer, and so thirteen members had a good haul of fungi including several Russula species. One of the first fungi was a young Deer Shield Pluteus cervinus followed by a Maze-gill Daedalea quercina with its intriguing pattern on the underside of the cap. In a damper hollow in the Birch wood was a Rooting shank Oudmansiella radicata and the spectacular Violet webcap Cortinarius violaceous. Another interesting species was the potato-like Yellow false truffle Rhizopogon luteolus.. Someone found the curious Ear pick fungus (N.B. our GFG logo) growing on a Pine cone.