Beatrix Potter, mycologist

 

When I first became seriously interested in natural history, about 60 years ago, the Wayside and Woodland series of nature guides, published by Warne, were some of the best available, but too expensive for me - the affordable Observer’s books, by the same publisher, were the limit of my budget. Now there are glossier, better illustrated up-to-date guides but the old W & W series often turn up in secondhand bookshops and have a nostalgic charm. This one cost me 50p. in a charity shop and is particularly interesting because most of the illustrations are watercolours by Beatrix Potter, of Flopsy-bunny, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Tiggywinkle children’s book fame.

Before she turned to writing children’s books Helen Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) was a passionate mycologist who approached the study of fungi with a scientist’s meticulous curiosity and an artist’s sensibility, encouraged by Charles McIntosh, her local postman-naturalist who often supplied her with toadstool specimens to paint.

Her studies extended to culturing fungal spores in her kitchen and in 1896 she submitted a research paper, on the subject of velvet shank toadstools Flammulina volutipes (pictured below) to the Linnaean Society of London. At that time it didn’t admit women as members but her paper was read at a meeting and returned for revision but never resubmitted nor published.

She moved on to writing and illustrating some of the best-loved children’s stories, devoting the latter years of her life to sheep breeding and conserving the beloved Lake District landscape that was her home, but her mycological legacy lives on in her exquisite watercolours.

Attack of the parasitic jelly fungus

 

This gloopy-looking stuff is Yellow brain fungus Tremella aurantia, growing on the dead branch of a tree along one of my favourite walks, in the Deerness valley, County Durham. It’s a jelly fungus with a rather sinister lifestyle, parasitising another common fungus, hairy curtain crust Stereum hirsutum, which you can just see, dying, on the underside of the branch.

The microscopically-fine hyphae of the parasite, invisible to the unaided human eye, creep through the decaying wood, find and clamp onto those of their host and eventually kill it. The damp, foggy weather we’ve had recently has been perfect for the growth of the gelatinous parasite.

There are two common species of Tremella in the British fungal flora - this one and Tremella mesenterica - which are virtually identical and can only be easily identified by the hosts they parasitise: T. mesenterica preys on another crust fungus called Peniophora, which often grows on gorse stems hereabouts.

And here, a little further down the dead branch bearing the yellow brain fungus, is some more hairy curtain crust, so there’s plenty more of its victim for it to feed on.

Tree sparrow courtship

 

Excited male tree sparrow, displaying to a potential mate, in the garden earlier this week. Flitting around her, cocking his tail, trembling his drooping wings and singing for all he was worth. He senses that spring is not too far away now.