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.

I Don't Need No ... Chlorophyll

Myxomycete, Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa.  High Elms Country Park, 19 June 2016.

If you think about plants that are not green, have no green leaves and do not need sunlight to make their food, you might think of fungi and perhaps slime moulds (Myxomycetes).  Actually, though, neither of these can really be called plants. 

Myxomycetes eat all sorts of tiny things, including bacteria and fungus spores, and most of them slurp around as a sort of mobile jelly until they settle down and put up spore-bearing organs like those shown here.  You can see the jelly form in this photo too.

Pale Stagshorn, Calocera pallidospathulata.  High Elms Country Park, 23 May 2016.

This one is a fungus.  Athough it looks rather like the Myxomycete and lives in the same sort of place, on rotting wood, it is not any sort of close relation, just as, for example, dragonflies and swifts are not closely related even though they both fly around snapping up insects. 

But there are also quite a few true plants that do not have any chlorophyll.  They are parasitic, leeching off the root systems of plants that do get their energy from the sun.

Common Toothwort, Lathraea squamaria.  High Elms Country Park, 24 March 2016.

Here is one, the Common Toothwort, that comes up early in the year in old woodland.  It is usually associated with Hazel. 

Common Broomrape, Orobanche minor.  High Elms Country Park, 19 June 2016.

There are also a whole group of Broomrapes that parasitise various plants.  They are not very common, and this is the only one I have seen locally.  I think it's the Common Broomrape, which parasitises a range of plants.  It was certainly in amongst a mixed group.

Yellow Bird's Nest, Monotropa hypopitys.  High Elms Country Park, 20 July 2016.

This is another parasite, but at one remove.  It feeds off fungi which in turn are linked to tree roots. The fungi provide minerals and basic food substances to the trees, and the trees provide sugars to the fungi.  Then the Yellow Bird's-nest grabs its food from the fungi.  SOmetimes you can trace a tree's roots by looking at the growth patterns of this plant.

I used to wonder how it got its common name, but this year I saw a mature flower:

Yellow Bird's Nest, Monotropa hypopitys.  Closeup of flower.  High Elms Country Park, 8 July 2016.

And it became less of a mystery.

All these so far have been seen at High Elms Country Park this year.  This last example, below, was photographed in the same park a couple of years ago.

Bird's Nest Orchid,  Neottia nidus-avis.   High Elms Country Park, 29 June 2013.

Not to be confused with the Yellow Bird's-nest, though it often grows near it - as it does here - this is the Bird's Nest Orchid.  It is also associated with tree roots; Beech, in this case.

As you can see, most of these plants are yellowish and sickly-looking.  But they are actually bursting with health, which makes one woonder about the state of their victims!

Some Myxomycetes

Lycogala epidendrum var. terrestre.

I mentioned Myxomycetes a couple of posts ago.  They are also called Slime Moulds, and have a life cycle in which they grow from spores into little amoeba-like creatures, come together into a larger and still mobile slime, then put up spore cases and spread their spores again.  (I have omitted much detail.)   Their slimy stage, called a plasmodium, can be small or quite large.  Most of those you can find in the UK are small.

There was a Myxo foray at Sevenoaks on the 14th of October, and at the start we were shown some examples by one of the group who had brought them along from elsewhere.  The first photo is a group of fruiting bodies, and you can see the small scale from the part of my thumbnail visible on the left.

Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa var. poroides

Here's another, a slightly smaller specimen.  You can see some plasmodium on the left, and some patches of a honeycomb-like fruiting structure.

Tubifera ferruginosa

Another of about the same size, on which you can see plasmodium and both young and mature fruiting bodies.

Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa.  Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve, 14 October 2012.

This is one we found on the day, and is a fruiting structure.  It's a different variety of the second one, apparently - I can only repeat what I am told about Myxomycetes.  But they do look fascinating.

Identification Answers

Fungi and Other Goodies

OK!  Quiz answers!  The fungi in this group are numbers 1, 2 and 6.  1 is a Small Stag's-horn Fungus, Calocera cornea; rather immature.  2 has the delightful common name of Crystal Brain, and can also be called Exidia nucleata.  6 is a Pale Staghorn,  Calocera pallidospathulata.

Number 3 had me excited when I saw it in wet rotting wood.  But on closer examination it turned out to be two holly berries that had fallen from the bush above.

I found Number 4 by turning over a piece of fallen wood.  It is a cluster of slug's eggs.  I don't know what species.  They will be familiar to most gardeners.

Number 5 is probably a bit of a trick question.  It's a Myxomycete, or Slime Mould, most likely a species of Trichia; it would take an expert with a microscope to determine which species.  Although Slime Moulds are often lumped in with fungi, because they have a lot of superficial similarities and they grow in the same places, many biologists think that they actually belong to a different kingdom and are related to Amoebas.  Some of them are quite mobile for part of their life cycles.  But they also reproduce by disseminating airborne spores, like fungi.  They are truly odd.

Yellow Slime Mould

Yellow slime mould, a Myxomycete.  Hayes Common, 27 March 2012.

A charming name, slime mould! But that's what it is called.  It's neither plant, animal nor fungus, though it is usually considered with the fungi by amateur naturalists.  I spotted this bright yellow blob on a fallen branch as I walked along a woodland path. On closer examination it seemed to be made up of small spheres:

Yellow slime mould, a Myxomycete.  Hayes Common, 27 March 2012.

I cut into it, but I could not see any sort of internal structure.  There is a similaly coloured myxomycete called the Dog Vomit Slime Mould, which this might be mistaken for at first sight, but that does not have the appearance of many tiny spheres that you can see here.  They might be on the end of short stalks.  So I do not have an indentification for this one.

I saw another Myxomyxete not long ago, at One Tree Hill, and that one looked like a blancmange. That didn't have any discernible structure either. But the appearance of blancmange or of many spheres is ephemeral. Two days later, I returned to this one and found only blackened remnants.  This is a piece, attached to the rotting wood it grew on.

Dead slime mould, a Myxomycete.  Hayes Common, 29 March 2012.

It does seem to have some structure now, some definite stalks, and there are probably lots of tiny spores in this mass.

One Tree Hill, March

Llama in a field near One Tree Hill.  17 March 2012.

This was yet another rainy day out. I miss my big camera when I see things to photograph on which I could use it well, but it would be silly to take it out in the rain. So these shots were all taken with my Ixus 100. These, and many more taken on this trip, are in an album here: One Tree Hill, Feb 2012.

One Tree Hill is south of Sevenoaks, on the Greensand Way, and is mostly woodland on soil of varying degrees of acidity, depending whether you are up on the ridge or down below it. We walked a circuit that took in both.

Bluebell in flower.  Hyacinthoides non-scripta.  One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

This was the first reasonable shot of a bluebell I have managed this year. It's too early for them to be out in my local commons, but here one is, on the roadside half an hour's drive to the south, just far enough to make a difference. There were other early flowers here too.

Ivy-leaved Speedwell, Veronica hederifolia. One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

This tiny plant was growing in crevices in a high wall, and among the grass at its base. I was tickled to see this as we had covered Speedwells in my wildflower class the day before.

There were also several mosses which our Bryological expert identified for us.

Homalothecium sericium.  Silky Wall Feather-moss.  One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

This one was on another wall by the roadside.

We saw quite a few Sweet Violets by the footpath, both white and purple varieties, though it's no doubt correct to call this colour violet!

Sweet Violet, Viola odorata.  One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

We were circling the edge of the wood below the ridge, with trees up the bank on our left and fields and houses to our right. Soon we passed two llamas in a field (one is shown above). And we encountered an unexpected hazard. There were several badger dung-pits by the path, easy to tread in while concentrating on the flora. Badgers make these shallow pits to mark the boundaries of their territory.

This walk was familiar to some of the group, who were keen to show us these highlights:

Leaf rosettes of  Early Purple Orchids, Orchis mascula.  One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

Leaf rosettes of the Early Purple Orchid, which will soon be flowering.

Life-sized model tiger. One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012

An unexpected sight, created by a local sculptress. This beast used to be much fresher-looking.

Green Hellebore, Helleborus viridis. One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

There was a whole patch of these Green Hellebores. Compare this with the cultivated Hellebore I showed a few days ago: Christmas Rose.

Near our lunch spot was an unusual sight: two blobs of a Myxomycete, or slime mould, looking just like tasty helpings of blancmange. I cut through the edge of one but there was no sign of any structure within, just more milky pudding, by its looks.

Myxomycete, perhaps Enteridium lycoperdon. One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

I will try to confirm the identification, and if I can I'll edit this note accordingly.  Myxomycetes are very odd creatures, neither animal, plant, nor fungus, with the ability to rove around hunting food at one point in their life cycle, a bit like The Blob from an old Steve McQueen film, but hungry for bacteria rather than people.  They put out spores like a fungus at another stage. When I first encountered slime moulds at University it was as though science fiction had overlapped with real life.

Here are some beautiful mossy rocks from near our lunch spot:

Mossy rocks. One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

(In the rain, of course.)  And the last pic for today is some little ponies we saw earlier. I think these are Shetlands, though I am no horse expert.

Small ponies.  Shetlands?  One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

There are photos of most of the things I have mentioned, and several others, in this album: One Tree Hill, Feb 2012.