Two Weak Horse-chestnuts

Horse-chestnut trees, Aesculus hippocastanum.  The Knoll, Hayes, 12 November 2016.

Two Horse-chestnut trees in my local park, both severely cut back.  Not long ago, we were warned by these signs:

Notice on Horse-chestnut trees.  The Knoll, Hayes, 29 October 2016

Well, they have been reduced, though not really to monoliths (which means a standing stone or something that resembles one).  But why?  Well, look at this.

Fungi on a Horse-chestnut tree.  The Knoll, Hayes, 14 December 2016.

On the right of this tree you can see a series of bracket fungi, a Ganoderma species, and higher up a cluster of something else.  Those Ganodermas are tough, half corky and half woody.

Ganoderma species on Horse Chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum. The Knoll, Hayes.  14 December 2016.

I tried to get a cross-section of one of those brackets.  You can sometimes tell the species by looking at the layer between each year's growth.  And here, you can see just where my hacksaw blade broke.

At the bottom of the tree there are even bigger brackets:

Ganoderma species on Horse Chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum. The Knoll, Hayes.  14 December 2016.

Almost hidden by fallen leaves.  Still the same species.  It has penetrated all up and down the tree.  You can jump up and down on those tough brackets without budging them.

The upper cluster looks like this:

Pleurotus ostreatus, Oyster Mushroom, on Horse Chestnut.  The Knoll, Hayes, 10 December 2016.

They are Oyster Mushrooms, a quite different species, an annual growth.  You can also see that the tree has a typical woodpecker nest hole and that the dead wood has many beetle holes.  It's not common to see more than one fungus species fruiting on a living tree.  Here there are three, because:

At the base of the tree on the other side:

Chondrostereum purpureum, Silverleaf, on Horse Chestnut.  The Knoll, Hayes.  14 December 2016.

Several clumps of a purplish fungus.  It's very pretty close up.

Chondrostereum purpureum, Silverleaf, on Horse Chestnut.  The Knoll, Hayes.  14 December 2016.

It's also very bad for the tree.  This is the fungus that causes silverleaf on plum trees.  It's a killer, but usually, healthy trees not related to plums can resist it.

So, three rather nasty fungal infections, plus birds and insects.  This is a weak tree and it's no wonder it was cut back to stop the wind from blowing it over.

What about the other tree?  Well earlier in the year I took this photo:

Dryad's Saddle, Polyporus squamosus, on Horse-chestnut.  The Knoll, Hayes, 4 September 2016.

Large amounts of yet another fungus, Dryad's Saddle.  Here you can also see that the green leaves are turning brown too early.  This is because of an infestation by the Horse-chestnut Leaf-miner moth, whose larvae eat out the insides of the leaves of all our local horse-chestnut trees.  Although the trees survive, it's thought that this must weaken them, and these two examples support that theory.

Dryad's Saddle is an annual growth, and the big brackets drop to the ground in winter.

Horse-chestnut Leaf-miner, Cameraria ohridella.  On the door above my garden light trap in Hayes on 11 August 2015.

This is the tiny Horse-chestnut Leaf-miner moth - this specimen came to my garden light trap last year.   I have seen clouds of them around horse-chestnut trees in their flight season.  The species was first seen in England in 2002 and has spread rapidly through the south-east.

So the trees are supporting an excellent diversity of life, if they will oblige by not falling over!

p.s.  Here are three local monolithic trees to show what I expected.

Three monolithic trees.  Hayes Common and West Wickham Common, 24 December 2016.

 The centre tree, a silver birch, has probably reached this state naturally.  The beech on the left, and what I think is an oak on the right, are near paths and were probably reduced to remove the chance that they would fall on someone passing by. 

Of course it's possible that more work will be done on the horse-chestnuts, even though their signs have gone.

Winter Oysterlings

Panellus stipticus, Bitter Oysterling.  Hayes Common, 28 October 2015.

Here are a couple of oysterling fungi that grow on dead wood.  This first one, the Bitter Oysterling, grows in the normal fungus season and well into the winter.  It's easily recognised by the crackle finish of the upper surface.

These ears are only one or two inches across.  The stem of an oysterling, like that of a more normal oyster mushroom, is at one side.

Panellus stipticus, Bitter Oysterling.  Hayes Common, 28 October 2015.

Here's the underside, showing the gills spread out like a fan.  I have seen a few of these in the woods this December, but I only had my iPhone with me and my photos are not as good as these I took last year.

Another oysterling is typically found in the winter.

Panellus serotinus, Olive Oysterling.  Hayes Common, 11 December 2016.

I spotted this Olive Oysterling over a week into December, on a dead Silver Birch stump.  It's softer than the Bitter Oysterling, with a slimy cap, and only lasts a couple of weeks in its prime.  It's not scarce, but I have not seen it very often, probably because it doesn't last. 

Panellus serotinus, Olive Oysterling.  Hayes Common, 11 December 2016.

The gills are more delicate than those of the Bitter Oysterling, and that mottled band where the stem meets the gills is typical of this species.

There are other Panellus species, but I have yet to encounter them.

Frosty Virgins

Hygrocybe virginea, Snowy Waxcap.  Hayes Common, 19 November 2016.

"virginea" does mean virgin in Latin, but it also means unworked land, which is more appropriate for this small Snowy Waxcap mushroom.  This photo is from a walk in November just after a frosty night.

Hygrocybe virginea, Snowy Waxcap.  Hayes Common, 19 November 2016.

This is what's known as unimproved grassland, meaning no-one has put fertiliser on it.  So you get a range of wild flowers, and the grasses are not the coarse and vigorous types that like lots of nitrates.  Farmers might think that's an improvement .. ecologists, less so.

On the same walk I saw another, even more common fungus.

Woodland leaf litter and a dead stump.  Hayes Common, 22 November 2016.

This is a path through the woods.  You can see holly bushes, and the leaf litter tells you that this is an oak wood.  Holly is a common and vigorous undergrowth.  (I took this shot a couple of days later to set the scene)

Xylaria hypoxylon, Candlesnuff.  Hayes Common, 19 November 2016.

Candlesnuff is a small fungus that is very often found on moist stumps.  It gets its name from its appearance of a candle wick that has been snuffed out.

Xylaria hypoxylon, Candlesnuff.  Hayes Common, 19 November 2016.

The white areas are the spore-bearing part, and when they are ripe like this, you can see clouds of spores being dispersed if you tap them.

Also on this walk I saw this Oak Bush-cricket out very late in the season.

Oak Bush-cricket, Meconema thalassinum.  Female.  Hayes Common, 19 November 2016.

It does not look very healthy.  It's probably completely worn out and not happy with the cold weather - it won't survive much longer.  At its rear end is its long curved ovipositor, which it uses to dig under the bark of oak trees to lay its eggs.  That bark is tough stuff and it must be hard work to get in there.

Next I'll post some December fungi.

Small and perhaps a bit Too Colourful

Phlebia radiata, Wrinkled Crust.  Hayes Common, 16 November 2016.

There's a lot of this Wrinkled Crust around this year, on dead broadleaved trees of various species.  If you look at this photo:

Pond on Hayes Common, 23 November 2016.

You can just about see orange markings on that trunk in the foreground.  So despite the bright colour, they are not all that conspicuous.

On the same trunk are some other small, colourful fungi.

Ascocoryne sarcoides or Ascocoryne cylichnium.  Pond on Hayes Common, 23 November 2016.

There are two Ascocoryne species that can't be separated without a microscope.  While looking at this photo, you can also see a black "bootlace" of the sort that Honey Fungi (Armillaria species) use to spread - very effectively - from tree to tree and along a trunk.

Calocera cornea, Small Stagshorn.  Dacromyces stillatus, Common Jellyspot, in the background.
Pond on Hayes Common, 25 November 2016.

Also on that trunk, two orange fungi,one small and the other tiny.  Small Stagshorn is easy to see when you get close, but the little orange blobs of Common Jellyspot are harder to see unless they crowd together in bigger clumps than this.

A short distance away, on a stump which was actually in the water, was this:

Unidentified Myxomycete.  Hayes Common, 13 November 2016.

Slightly blurred because it was out of reach of a steady hand-held photo.  This is a slime mould or Myxomycete, not a fungus.  They are even more ephemeral than fungi, fruiting and dying back in a couple of days.   I have not been able to identify these purple blobs on stalks.

This is another slime mould:

Myxomycete.  Trichia species.  Hayes Common, 18 November 2016.

It looks like an immature Trichia.  All these species like it wet - well, damp anyway.  In this particular hollow they certainly have it that way.  If you compare the photo above with the one in the previous post taken a few days earlier, you will see that the water level has risen noticeably.  The Inkcaps featured in that post are now under water, as is the stump on which I saw both of these slime moulds.

In fact .. here is the same hollow in February 2014:

Pond on Hayes Common, 9 February 2014.

Taken from the same angle, but from higher up, for obvious reasons.

Fungi In Hiding

Coprinopsis atramentaria, Common Inkcap.  Hayes Common, 18 November 2016.

Fungi are often not easy to see until you train your perception into looking for the right things.  For example, recently I looked into a hollow on my local common that contains a pond.  I saw some interesting things straight away, but it wasn't until I went back and walked around looking carefully that I saw other, quite large fungi. 

Coprinopsis atramentaria, Common Inkcap.  Hayes Common, 18 November 2016.

If you weren't looking down you might walk right past these.  Although they are called Common Inkcaps, I have not seen this species before.  These are growing in part of the hollow that is usually underwater. 

They are called Inkcaps because ...

Coprinopsis atramentaria, Common Inkcap.  Hayes Common, 13 November 2016.

When they mature, they produce jet black spores and dribble them out in lots of fluid, which was actually once used as ink.  

It's possible for quite colourful fungi to be disguised too, among the yellows and browns of leaf litter.

Gymnopilus penetrans, Common Rustgill.  Hayes Common, 16 November 2016.

On a stump in the same hollow is this Rustgill, and I had to step up close to be sure I was seeing what I thought I was.

Gymnopilus penetrans, Common Rustgill.  Hayes Common, 16 November 2016.

Up close it looks impossible to disguise, but it's a very similar colour to some of the Oak leaf litter that surrounds it.

Here is the hollow ...

Logs and pond on Hayes Common, 18 November 2016.

That colourful Rustgill is on the low stump in the left close foreground.  (The Inkcaps are to the left of the mound in the background.)

There are some more vivid fungi on that big log, but they are small.  Next time ...

King Alfred's Cakes

King Alfred's Cakes, Daldinia concentrica.  Cross section.  Beckenham Place Park, 16 October 2016

The story goes that when King Alfred was in hiding, he was offered a place to stay by an old woman who asked him to watch her cakes as they cooked.  Lost in thoughts of his own strategy, he did not concentrate on that too-simple task and the cakes burned.

King Alfred's Cakes, Daldinia concentrica, on Silver Birch.  Beckenham Place Park, 7 December 2013.

These brown blobs are a fungus named after that story.  They start out brown, and later turn black.

They are crisp and brittle, and a knife goes through them with a pleasing crunch, exposing an interior consisting of concentric spheres - hence the species name.

King Alfred's Cakes, Daldinia concentrica.  Cross section.  Beckenham Place Park, 16 October 2016

It is said that they make good tinder, and can be used as hand warmers.  Well, I thought I would investigate this.  I brought a few chunks home from Petts Wood (they are very common) and put the on my metal balcony.  (NO LIGHTING FIRES IN THE WOODS!)

King Alfred's Cakes, Daldinia concentrica, on the back balcony of my house in Hayes, 19 November 2016.

They are very light.  The biggest piece here is 5 cm across and weighs about 4½ grammes.

It turns out that they can be lit easily, using a lighter or a match.  (I tried both.)  An experienced woodsman should be able to get them going with a spark from flint and steel.  They smoulder, with no flame, and they are persistent; they don't go out even if they start with just a tiny red dot, like the top piece in the photo below, which I lit at the very tip.

King Alfred's Cakes, Daldinia concentrica, burning on the back balcony of my house in Hayes, 19 November 2016.

These are the two pieces on the left in the previous photo.  When a breeze blew over them, they glowed.  I let them go for about 10 minutes and then put them out with water.  They lasted long enough and burned hot enough that they could easily have have been used to ignite some dry twigs.

They gave off a very pungent smoke which I could still smell on my clothes a few hours later.  I would not want to hold one in my hand as a warmer, it would be too likely to burn me, but their use as tinder is definitely a goer.

p.s. They appear almost always on dead Ash.  But I read that their DNA can be found in almost all trees, they just don't fruit on most of them. The top photo, showing some on Silver Birch, is quite unusual.

More New This Year

Lunar Marbled Brown, Drymonia ruficornis.  In my garden light trap in Hayes on 11 April 2016.

Here are some more moths from my garden light trap which I saw there for the first time this year.

I have seen these Lunar Marbled Browns in the West Wickham Common trap.  In their season they can suddenly turn up in large numbers.  This was the first one to appear in my garden.  I took this photo in natural light, and in fact this is three photos combined in a "stack" to improve the depth of focus. 

Usually, to take photos to stack, photographers use a rack on which the camera can be moved precisely, and usually they don't use living subjects.  So for this I chose a torpid moth, used a tripod and refocused with great care.

Tinea trinotella.  In my garden light trap in Hayes on 1 August 2016.

This red-headed micromoth, Tinea trinotella, which has a wingspan of about 16mm, is one of a group of rather similar moths whose caterpillars feed on organic debris, and can often be found in birds' nests. This one looks quite smart, but many of its relatives are more scruffy.

Kent Black Arches, Meganola albula.  In my garden light trap in Hayes on 18 July 2016.

I was pleased to see this Kent Black Arches because it's quite scarce and localised.  I have also seen one specimen in the West Wickham Common trap.  One book tells me its caterpillars eat dewberries, which I do not think are common here, but another says they will also eat brambles, close relatives of the dewberry and very common indeed, which makes a lot more sense.

Acrobasis advenella.  In my garden light trap in Hayes on 3 August 2016.

Acrobasis advenella is not scarce at all, and it's quite colourful.  It's techically a micromoth because it's in the family Pyralidae, but it's not all that small, with a wingspan of about 20mm.  Its caterpillars live on hawthorn and rowan, both very common. I have a couple of hawthorns in my garden.

Green Silver-lines, Pseudoips prasinana.  In my garden light trap in Hayes on 29 July 2016.

There aren't many green moths, and usually the colour fades fast.  This Green Silver-lines is almost entirely green, but even this would have been a more vivid colour when fresh.  The bald thorax tells us that this specimen has been around for a while.  Its caterpillars feed on oak and birch.

Red-line Quaker, Agrochola lota.  In my garden light trap in Hayes on 22 October 2016.

This Red-line Quaker was almost my last catch of the year, and I was pleased to see it.  It's not rare, but I had not seen one before.  The caterpillars feed on willows, and I wonder if the willow by my front steps has provided a home for this one.

New This Year

Streamer, Anticlea derivata.  On the wall above my garden light trap in Hayes on 2 May 2016

I've been catching moths in my garden for five years, in a fairly basic light trap, and I still get new species to add to my list.  There were 22 new species this year.  Some of them I had already seen elswehere, but others were completely new to me.  That doesn't mean they are rare!  There are about 2,500 species of moth in the UK and a lot of them, often quite common ones, just don't live near me or only arrive occasionally.

Here are a few of this year's new arrivals.

The Streamer's caterpillars feed on dog-roses and the adult arrives quite early in the year.  I had not seen one of these before.

Light Brocade, Lacanobia w-latinum.  In my garden light trap in Hayes on 13 May 2016.

Light Brocades have turned up a few times in the West Wickham Common trap, about a mile away, but this was the first one in my garden.  Its caterpillars eat broom and related plants, and there's not much of those off the commons.

Esperia sulphurella.  Male.  In my garden light trap in Hayes on 21 May 2016.

The so-called micromoths – and some of them are indeed extremely small, much smaller than this, which has a 15mm wingspan – usually turn up in the middle of the year, so it's nice to see some early on.  I had not seen this Esperia sulphurella before, though it's not rare.  The caterpillars eat dead wood.

Metalampra italica.  In my garden light trap in Hayes on 20 July 2016.

Metalampra italica was first seen in England in 2003, but now seems to have established breeding colonies.  It still arrives as an immigrant, and that's probably how this got into my garden.  This was a nice catch.  It's another micromoth, with a 12mm wingspan.  Again, the caterpillars eat decaying wood.

  Lesser Swallow Prominent, Pheosia gnomaIn my garden light trap in Hayes on 31 August 2016.

I've seen Lesser Swallow Prominents in a number of places, but this was the first to come to my garden trap.  Its caterpillars eat birch, and, like the trees, the moths are common.  They are smart-looking creatures and, despite having "lesser" in their common name, are quite large, with a wingspan up to 50mm.

I'll post some more next time.